Safe care and adoption for Indian Babies

Our Snehankur adoption center has been helping abandoned children and their mothers for the last 15 years. We may be an adoption center but our focus has always been on our vision of helping and supporting women and girls who face difficulties and discrimination in their pregnancies and supporting their babies once they are born. Our support goes beyond the safe birth of the babies as we counsel and support mothers to take their rightful place back in society, with or without their babies. In fact, we are still in contact with the mother of our first ever adopted child.

We never know what each new day will bring, facing a range of challenges while rescuing and rehabilitating innocent infants and / or young mothers. As Mother’s Day approaches we would like to share a story of one of our brave mothers who overcame adversity to bring new life into this world. Sneha is just one of many girls who we work with forced to make difficult choices in the face of gender bias, age old traditions and societal pressure.

A bright student who was pursuing a career in civil services Sneha (21 yrs) had cleared the preliminary round of the required competitive exams for these positions and was getting ready for her finalswith some private training classes. Here she met and fell in love with a fellow student who promised to carry their relationship to the next level and Sneha came to trust him. However, when she fell pregnant, and asked him to marry her he made his excuses and fled.

Sneha was terrified to tell her parents who belong to the farming community and are from a low economic background. Ignorant to her situation, they took some private loans against their farm land and reduced the burden of supporting Sneha by forcing her into a marriage. Sneha did really well at hiding her pregnancy from her husband and in-laws, but as soon as she delivered her baby her new family immediately abandoned them both. While her parents were in a state of shock Sneha was also suffering a mental breakdown. On hand was one of our volunteers who took control and called our team. The call came in at 4am and, our team member Santosh started out immediately on the 3.5 hour journey for the government hospital where Sneha had given birth, accompanied by a nurse and a female care taker. After counseling Sneha and her parents, he brought them to Snehankur, our adoption center. After completing the legalities, Sneha and the baby were taken to a private hospital for check-ups and treatment. The gynaecologist advised that Sneha and child needed to be admitted for observation and treatment as both were mentally and physically very weak. Sneha’s hemoglobin count had dropped to 5% and she needed an urgent blood transplant and medication. Her baby boy also required special ICU as he had a low birth weight.

After few days of hospitalization, with neither her parents nor her in-laws willing to take her back, Sneha returned to our adoption center to start the process of relinquishing her son. She seemed to be still under tremendous pressure and shock and the next day she completely lost her vision. Our ever alert team rushed her to an ophthalmologist who referred her to a neurologist who advised this was a temporary blindness, psychosomatic in nature,that would recover in time.

Sneha has gradually recovered and regained her normal vision and her son is also fit and healthy and awaiting adoption. With all other support gone, Sneha is grateful that Snehalaya is helping her to continue to pursue her exams and reach her career goals.

So we would like to thank you for supporting us to continue to help girls and women like Sneha, offering alternatives to their innocent babies and helping them to fulfill their dreams and forget their nightmares.

Links:

• http://www.snehalaya.org