KYRA....
Chris and I have been married for 8 years now. Joshua…. our 3 year old son. Kyra… the daughter we could have had.
“Love? Are you ok?” Chris in his concerned tone, changing his clothes. I am predicting in my mind what his next action is going to be. And there he goes! throws his pile of clothes onto one corner of the room, I am too tired to complain or pin point so I ignore it and look somewhere else to forget about it. “I am ok. Just a little tired. How was your day at work?” “Just the usual. Lots of paper work, had to go to the site today, it’s bloody hot out there. Only if you get out in the afternoon will you know.” Silence. I’m wondering what to say, he’s wondering if he should say what’s’ behind his mind or not. Then he decides to do it. “You know Mike and Sara right? Mike… my colleague.. His wife Sara… you met her at Ken’s party last time I’m guessing.They’v adopted a child. A six month old girl. Mike seems to be really happy. He can’t stop talking about how life’s changed since the child’s arrival. Who else would know this better? They are throwing a party next weekend.” He walks off to the kitchen to find food. I’m predicting what he’s doing there. Opening the fridge, taking out a bottle of cold water and drinking directly from it. And then I keep thinking and I don’t realize, my thoughts find their own trail.
When Joshua was born we were the happiest parents on earth. He was a bundle of joy. He had his father’s hair and his eyes resembled mine .The moment I saw him I was proud, I knew he’d grow up to be a charming young man. As excited parents we did everything for him right from buying the most expensive toys to throwing the most extravagant birthday party. I enjoyed being a mother. I kept track of every single action of his. Chris made it a point to spend time with him no matter how much work he had or how late he came back home. We wanted to give him the best we could. I remember the time I took Josh for his vaccine shot. He wailed so bad that my heart ached. The worst a mother could go through is when her child is in pain and she can’t do anything about it.
Chris and I being the single child of our respective parents knew the agony of being a single, lonesome child. Hence the instant we’d decided to get married we’d also decided to have two kids. Joshua brought so much color and happiness in our lives that we decided to have our next child. We tried conceiving right from when Joshua turned one. Six months of trying real hard and nothing working we decided to go for a check up. That’s when we discovered that Chris was affected by erectile dysfunction and that we could not have anymore kids of our own. It did hit us quite bad. Chris was upset for a while, but I did everything to liven up his spirit. I didn’t want him to feel as though he lacked something, although he did. After four months of that whole episode when I was sure that Chris had well enough gotten over the trauma, I decided to talk to him about adopting a baby girl. It had hit my mind the moment the doctor told us that we could not have a baby again. But I didn’t want to bring the topic up as Chris was already going through a bad phase and I didn’t want to hurt him in anyway. I really wanted a baby and I didn’t want him to get upset and say no in anyway. “Honey, why don’t we adopt a baby girl? You know… many couples who are unable to have babies opt for this and its pretty common now too. Plus we actually get a chance to choose a baby we want.”
We went and did a survey on different adoption agencies nation wide. Finally we decided to look out for something within the city itself as the process will take time and it would be easier if it’s in the same city. We filed an adoption with Ararst agency. We had to send in all our official papers and wait. That’s all we could do…wait! Things were pretty quiet until the phone rang the following February. That’s when the real work began. Three months down the lane we got a reply from the agency asking us to come visit them. I was thrilled. And first time in ages I saw Chris actually take care in dressing himself up. He wanted to prove to them that he was a good father and would be. This visit followed many more and they always encouraged us to bring josh along so that he could get used to the fact that there was a baby coming home. We spent months cleaning our house for social worker visits, gathering tax returns and letters of reference, taking blood tests, and finding marriage and birth certificates. We spoke about the baby whenever we thought it was apt. Chris was as excited as Josh. They both looked like a couple of 2 year olds excited for a toy their mommy is going to bring home for being good all day. I fantasized all day long about how my baby doll looked, how we would play with her, how I would take her and Josh to the park. Once all the paper work was done. We were informed that there would be some counseling sessions and visits from the agency to see how the atmosphere in our house is. We were ecstatic but scared. We wanted the baby to adjust well. We were hoping that we would react appropriately to all the uncomfortable situations. There were about 4-5 visits from the agency, some were surprise visits. There was nothing I really had to worry about as I knew I was a good mother. They played around with Josh and asked him what his mommy had told him about the baby who was coming home. “We are going to name her Kyra. I’ll give her all my toys to play with.” On May 10th we got a call from the agency telling us that according to our mentor in the agency we were ready to come take a look at the babies that were short listed and pick the one we would like to take back home with us. Our preference was for a girl. The agency had short listed babies with the same skin color as mine n Chris’s and babies that resembled us to some extent. We were shown a whole range of baby girls, all unique and beautiful in their own little way. I couldn’t believe that nobody wanted them, they were abandoned by their parents! How could someone possibly keep these little angles away from them?? Then I saw Kyra among them. She was an angel. She was radiant. Her eyes were full of warmth and deep down somewhere there I could also see a whole lot of innocent questions. I knew this was her…. This was me... again!! Chris remarked that her eyes were just like mine and that she had ears like his .She was 9 months old. He took an instant liking towards her. We both couldn’t wait for Josh to meet his little sister. We weren’t allowed to take her home the first day. We were instructed that we had to visit her here at the foster home couple of times till she got used to new faces and we could also take her home for a while till all the official work was clear and we could take her home legally once and for all. The next time we visited Kyra at the home Joshua accompanied us. He was thrilled to see her, jumping up and down with excitement. He had a bunch of candy bars for her. I was actually worried about how Josh would react to the entire thing. He did ask me his regular baby questions like why we had to bring him a little sister and why he had to share his things with her. He wanted to know if she was going to stay forever or would go back after sometime. He wanted to know why she didn’t come out of ‘mommy’s tummy’ and to that I answered that this time god let us pick one special baby who Josh could play with and he was contented with that answer of mine because he never asked me anymore questions after that. We three did all we could to make Kyra like us. When at the home we would play around with her. I would hold her hand and try make her walk, when at home we showered her with toys and clothes of all kinds. We wanted to give her everything we gave Joshua. But as Kyra came into our lives I saw Josh withdrawing slowly. I took it as him being mature and learning to accept a sibling. He spoke less and was not as energetic as usual. Somehow I felt he wasn’t being himself. Finally on July 19th she entered our house and our lives legally. Now she was officially our ‘daughter’…Kyra. Her birthday was a month away so I decided to start preparing. It would be an occasion to show off my daughter to all our friends and relatives. I bought the pretties of clothes for her .I spent time talking to her. Initially it was difficult. She hardly said any words to any of us. I thought probably because it was me. So Chris tried being friendly. She was indifferent to him too. She wasn’t the way she was when we were at the foster home. We decided to give her time. She was a baby. It was obviously difficult for her. She had already been through lots at this age. The more time we spent with her trying to make her react in someway, the less time we spent with Josh. It was all getting difficult. I knew we could sort this out. So Chris and I alternatively spent time with Josh and Kyra. Kyra’s b’day was celebrated with the same pomp and show as Josh’s. It had been 2 months now and we were still struggling. I began to spend more time with Josh. I didn’t want to be unfair. He was my son after all. I realized I did like Kyra but I probably didn’t love her. I somehow didn’t feel like a mother all over again like the way I thought I would feel before we brought her home, like the way I felt when josh came into my life. That’s when the thought dawned upon me. Why didn’t I have the rush of emotions? Why cant’ I accept this child as my very own? Why don’t I feel like a mother? I didn’t want to tell Chris about all this. I thought probably he would blame me for not weighing all these pros and cons before we jumped into this. I realized I always took Josh’s side and did more things for him subconsciously.
If I broke a chocolate into half I gave Josh the bigger piece, if they fought over a toy I always snatched it and gave it to Josh and asked him to go play somewhere else. I was being a mean mother. I was being unfair to her and I didn’t realize this all along until one day I didn’t see myself in her. I withdrew even more. I could relate to that angel who was so radiant the day I picked her. “Chris do you love Kyra?” I asked him casually one day as we lay in bed. “Obviously I do! What sort of a stupid question is that?” “Do you love her as much as you love Josh? Honestly… Would you do anything for her like you would for Josh?” Then there was silence. I knew right then that Chris probably went through the same emotions but not as much as me because he never spent so much time with her to realize how different he would be to her. We then realized maybe we weren’t that good parents that we could actually accept a baby as our own. That night we decided to give it one more shot. We decided to be nicer to Kyra. Kyra would not get too close to us, ever. We tried holding, cuddling, etc. but nothing worked. She was very distant, violent,
Threatening, and very unmanageable.. She cried all the time and I realized I wasn’t prepared for the stage to handle cranky babies. Why was I indifferent? Why couldn’t I relate to this kid? I asked the same questions to myself over and over. But I was blank I didn’t have an answer. God was weird I thought. When we were given something out of choice we accepted it without a fuss and now when we actually could pick why was there a problem now. When I was a kid I never liked the doll I got for Christmas. I always liked my best friends doll better because she always got to pick hers from the store while Santa came and home delivered mine. But she never let me have hers so I never got to pick one for myself. I was thinking about my dolls as a kid and about the doll I got to pick now. What irony! I tried loving her to the maximum extent I couldn’t. In Dec I decided that we had given this enough time and this couldn’t go on like this. I realized I was depriving this child lot of love and if I made her stay in this prison where nobody truly loved her I would never be forgiven for such a mistake. I wanted her to go back and I prayed to god after a very long time and asked him to forgive me for the meanest mistake I had committed and to protect this child whom I could not love passionately, this child whom I made to suffer in spite of knowing the amount of pain she had already been through at such a young age. I didn’t want to feel guilty anymore for doing what I already did enough to her…not lover her. I spoke to Chris about it. It was difficult. But he understood. He spoke to the agency and we sorted out things. The day arrived and we had to return her back to the foster. I felt sad for what I did to her than for her. I cursed myself for days. I knew I couldn’t go through the entire drive back to the foster so Chris drove her back. Packed her things. The least I could do was not deny her of the materialistic things. I dressed her up like a doll. Kissed her on her cheek and put her in the car seat. I stood there till I saw the car disappear into the fog. I go to church every Thursday and light a candle in her name. God probably won’t forgive me but I pray that when she grows up this experience of hers shouldn’t come back into her mind. “Mommy where is Kyra I cant find her anywhere?” Joshua actually looked upset. “She was an angel who came to visit us now she’s gone back… we couldn’t keep her forever Josh….” A tear rolled down my cheek.. I’m predicting what Chris is doing at the agency. I see him weep slowly.
And that was Kyra… the daughter I could have had
