When Joyce (not her re­al name) re­ceived news that the process of be­com­ing an adop­tive par­ent was fi­nal­ly com­plete, she felt a great sense of ful­fil­ment as she walked out of the of­fices of the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Out­side, her sis­ter was wait­ing to record her tears. On the day she would meet her daugh­ter for the first time, she was so over­whelmed that she was un­able to dri­ve her­self to the vis­it in Port-of-Spain.

“The ner­vous feel­ing last­ed from the day they con­tact­ed me, say­ing we think we have a match for you to the day I was go­ing to meet the case work­er and the prospec­tive adoptee (child),” she told the Sun­day Guardian re­cent­ly.

It was sol­id sup­port from her fam­i­ly mem­bers, church and the staff of the Au­thor­i­ty that stead­ied her through­out the process of re­al­is­ing the dream she had held since her youth. She is grate­ful for their con­tin­ued sup­port even un­til to­day.

Years be­fore, Joyce had start­ed vis­it­ing chil­dren's homes as part of the youth ac­tiv­i­ties of her church. She cul­ti­vat­ed a deep car­ing and long­ing to bring joy to the lives of the chil­dren she met.

“The idea came from my moth­er, who has since passed, who used to do the same thing at the church. So it was one of our things. It was even from that young age that you felt a tug at the heart strings when you looked at the num­ber of chil­dren that were there. We would go at var­i­ous times and see some­times on some of them, the sad­ness when you're leav­ing and them want­i­ng to come with you.

“It re­al­ly nev­er left me. I spoke to my mum and some of the mem­bers of the church and made a de­ci­sion that whether or not I had chil­dren of my own, it was some­thing that I would look at.”

Joyce said even if she did not adopt, she made a promise to give back to chil­dren's homes in some way.

“Not nec­es­sar­i­ly ma­te­r­i­al, but just to sit, chat, bring some cheer to chil­dren. They looked well-tak­en care of in the homes, but I think one fac­tor miss­ing was what we were able to bring to them on some of those vis­its,” she said.

Joyce, who does not have oth­er chil­dren, vis­it­ed the Adop­tion Board through the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and re­ceived a num­ber of brochures and in­for­ma­tion.

“They told me I could take my time, read up on it and come back. I did take time. I spoke with oth­er peo­ple who had gone through the process. Some peo­ple weren't forth­com­ing be­cause of, ap­pre­cia­tive­ly, the length of the process,” she re­called.

Even­tu­al­ly, she de­cid­ed to adopt. Back at the Adop­tion Board, she re­ceived more in-depth in­for­ma­tion, filled out an ap­pli­ca­tion form and pre­sent­ed par­tic­u­lar re­quired doc­u­ments. Al­though the process was lengthy, Joyce said the Board had made her aware and dur­ing in­ter­views, en­sured that she ful­ly un­der­stood what she was about to un­der­take.

There were back­ground and ref­er­ence checks. Af­ter be­ing in­formed by a com­mit­tee that she had been ap­proved as a prospec­tive adop­tive par­ent, she was giv­en a num­ber on a wait­ing list. It would be eight years be­fore Joyce would be called in to meet the child she would be grant­ed per­mis­sion to adopt. Dur­ing that time, the Adop­tion Board had been re­placed by the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the tran­si­tion most like­ly af­fect­ed her case. Oth­er is­sues like avail­abil­i­ty of chil­dren to adopt and be­ing able to be matched with a suit­able child al­so im­pact­ed the wait­ing pe­ri­od.

Through­out her wait, the Au­thor­i­ty kept in close con­tact, mak­ing sure she still had an in­ter­est and in­form­ing of any changes in the process.

Be­com­ing a moth­er has come with chal­lenges, Joyce ad­mit­ted, but she has tak­en time off from work to help both her daugh­ter and her­self to ad­just. Prayer and be­ing ex­posed to fam­i­ly mem­bers with chil­dren have al­so helped.

“There were a lot of changes. From just be­ing able to get up and go or not feel­ing like get­ting up on a par­tic­u­lar day, to now hav­ing this child. But I al­ways tell peo­ple it's pos­si­ble through a lot of prayer. When I made up my mind to do it, my moth­er be­fore she passed, told me: this is go­ing to be a big change in your life and if you know you're not pre­pared to make some dras­tic changes, I want you to think care­ful­ly about this.”

Ini­tial­ly, Joyce had been con­cerned about her mar­i­tal sta­tus and age re­stric­tions when she ap­plied, but the Au­thor­i­ty which was es­tab­lished in 2015, ad­vised that these would not pre­vent some­one from adopt­ing.

“I think peo­ple put those re­stric­tions on them­selves too; how you live your life, would you have chil­dren lat­er on, at what age, how it would af­fect this child you have now adopt­ed, if you adopt first and then bear a child. All these were tak­en in­to ac­count by me and fur­ther dis­cussed by the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty when we met.”

She said hav­ing com­plet­ed her stud­ies and hav­ing had op­por­tu­ni­ties to trav­el abroad, she be­came more adamant about mak­ing room in her life for a child.

“I've nev­er re­gret­ted it one day,” she said.

From her own ex­pe­ri­ence and sit­u­a­tions she has wit­nessed, Joyce felt that, at times, peo­ple in this coun­try tend­ed to be con­de­scend­ing to women who adopt.

“I have been on the end of it, not a lot be­cause I did what I did for me and the child; to of­fer her, God will­ing, a bet­ter life. But I had a friend and it was re­al­ly, re­al­ly tough. I guess so­ci­ety looks at you as a woman not be­ing able to ful­fil part of what women should be able to do nat­u­ral­ly and there­fore, as some­body used the word, you re­sort to adop­tion. That is not a good po­si­tion in which to put some­one.”

Joyce plans to talk with her daugh­ter about her adop­tion at an ap­pro­pri­ate age, ear­li­er rather than lat­er, she stressed. She wants to en­sure that her daugh­ter gets the in­for­ma­tion from her, rather than from the wrong sources.

As to fam­i­ly tra­di­tions she has shared with her daugh­ter thus far, Joyce said that she came from a fam­i­ly who en­joys gath­er­ings and she, her­self, was al­ways plan­ning spe­cial mo­ments with her daugh­ter.

“Christ­mas morn­ing was al­ways some­thing spe­cial for me. My fam­i­ly loves Christ­mas, so she (my daugh­ter) loves it now. We get match­ing py­ja­mas, have Christ­mas break­fast. On Christ­mas night, it's a Christ­mas movie.

“Things like birth­days, I try to make them spe­cial. Mon­days, first days of school I try to make them spe­cial. She loves to have movie nights when we have pop­corn and watch a movie. With re­gards to fam­i­ly, there are a lot of fam­i­ly oc­ca­sions, COVID has con­strict­ed us, but we do it vir­tu­al­ly. Tonight is my sis­ter's birth­day, so we're do­ing it vir­tu­al­ly.”

Joyce, who has al­ready tak­en her daugh­ter to To­ba­go, plans to team up with a friend who al­so has a daugh­ter, to ex­plore oth­er coun­tries with her child once the pan­dem­ic is over.

She had some strong ad­vice for those con­sid­er­ing whether adop­tion was the best choice for them.

“If you're think­ing of adopt­ing, think long and hard; not just for your­self, but about the child who has to ben­e­fit from this adop­tion be­cause they are prob­a­bly in the sit­u­a­tion not be­cause of what they did. If you're hop­ing to of­fer them some­thing bet­ter, make sure you know that your life is go­ing to change, and should...dras­ti­cal­ly to ac­com­mo­date this child.

“Be sure that you are will­ing to give a lot of your­self. Make sure you have a good sup­port sys­tem so you don't start to ques­tion your­self about your de­ci­sion to adopt. If you have a good sup­port sys­tem, you can talk through it, pray through it and once you have made that de­ci­sion make them as hap­py as you can and in that, you are go­ing to feel a re­al sense of sat­is­fac­tion,” she said.

She al­so urged that prospec­tive adop­tive par­ents for­get what they had no in­flu­ence over, like what peo­ple would think and be con­fi­dent in their de­ci­sion.

To reach the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty

The Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty can be reached at 627-0748; web­site: www.ttchil­dren.org

Fos­ter Care: ext.40988; Adop­tion: ext. 40023 to 40025; Face­book: Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad &To­ba­go; In­sta­gram: Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty of T&T.

Peo­ple des­per­ate­ly in need of al­ter­na­tive care for their chil­dren or those wish­ing to adopt can al­so con­tact the Au­thor­i­ty on Hot­line: 996 or 800-2014, or email adop­tion@ttchil­dren.org