Adoption, once a solution to the 'problem' of single motherhood, is now a way of achieving single motherhood, writes Kate Holmquist
Many of today's affluent, single Irish woman in their mid-30s have a quality of life that is unprecedented in Irishwomen's history - holidays abroad, property ownership, cars and the freedom to enjoy varied social activities. But if the biological clock starts ticking and there's no sign on the horizon of a committed relationship with a man, the successful single woman may begin to crave the one thing that money and independence alone cannot achieve: a child of her own.
Some women have tried artificial insemination by donor, while others have had flings followed by "accidental" pregnancies, but both approaches raise ethical dilemmas with which many women are uncomfortable.
A growing number of single women believe they have found a workable and humanitarian solution: inter-country adoption.
It's nearly a year since Geraldine Grant (40), who lives in Blanchardstown, Co Dublin, travelled to North Vietnam to adopt her daughter, Georgia Thu Grant, then aged two months. "Thu" in Vietnamese means autumn, a name given to her by the loving orphanage worker who gave her one-to-one care during her first weeks of life.
"I'm absolutely besotted with her, and I know that I am so, so lucky. She's a wonderful child," says Geraldine, who has taken 12 months off from her work in the health area to be with her daughter full time.
"I always loved children and I've always been child-oriented, but the right man never came along. Five years ago, I heard a woman talking on the radio about how she had just adopted as a single woman and I knew immediately that adoption was for me. That very same day, I applied to the health board for assessment."
Geraldine has several single female friends who have also adopted children born in other countries, including one woman who travelled with Geraldine to North Vietnam and also adopted a two-month-old girl on the same day. The two women even had rooms side by side in the orphanage, where they stayed with their new babies for several weeks before the adoption ceremony.
"The two girls were born only two days apart and my friend and I bring them together frequently. I think it's wonderful that the girls will each grow up with a friend who came from the same orphanage," she says.
The single adoptive mothers provide mutual support, as do married couples who also adopted Vietnamese-born children. "We're on the phone all the time and meet every week. Twelve of the children come together every Saturday morning for a Vietnamese language play group, where we intend to nurture their common heritage."
Geraldine and Thu have also befriended Vietnamese immigrant families in the Blanchardstown area, a development that Geraldine hopes will help Thu to learn about the culture into which she was born, as well as the Irish one in which she is being reared.
Single women now comprise almost 10 per cent of the 2,000 prospective adopters who are members of the International Adoption Association. Popular in the US since the mid-1990s, the adoption of children by "lone adopters" has been legal in Ireland since 1991, but few knew of the possibility.
The irony isn't lost on Geraldine that adoption, which changed the lives of 40,000 Irish children following its inception in this country, was a response to the "problem" of single motherhood, but has now come full circle to become a way of achieving single motherhood, now that it is a desirable status for many women.
Only 66 lone adopters had their adoptions approved by the Adoption Board as of 2004, but this does not reflect the true number of lone adopters who are in the process of being assessed and waiting for approval. More than 1,000 applicants are being processed in 2005, an estimated 100 of them lone women, if the IAA's estimate is correct.
"It was not important for me to get pregnant and carry a child, not when there are plenty of children in the world in need of parents. Nor was it important to me that my child be biologically mine," Geraldine says.
Her struggle to become an adoptive mother lasted five difficult years, due partly to the long waiting lists for assessment in her area. "The assessment process was like standing in O'Connell Street naked," she says.
She thinks that her single status exposed her to even greater scrutiny, since married couples are the preferred option.
All adoption assessments are rigorous, requiring prospective parents to divulge the most intimate details of their lives, including sexual behaviour. "It's so exposing that you really have to want to do it," says Geraldine.
Anyone in the lone adopter's circle who will have regular contact with the adopted child must also be assessed. However, two lone adopters who are unmarried may never apply as a couple; only married couples are considered. Single men may apply to adopt.
Geraldine says that the fact she had her mother, sister and niece living close by was an asset, since lone adopters must show that they have the necessary social supports, as well as being psychologically and financially sound. The qualities required of a prospective lone adopter or adopting couple are of such high standard, the many parents with biological children would doubtless fail the assessment if they were to consider adoption.
"I've had a very positive reception from people about becoming a mother through adoption. Sometimes I'll get the odd comment in shops - one woman peered into the buggy and asked me, 'where's her father from?' I've also been asked 'did you meet her real mother?' I am her real mother. Being an adoptive mother does not make me an 'unreal' mother."
Yet the new mother is aware that she shares her motherhood with the woman who gave birth to Georgia Thu.
"Georgia has two mammies, her Vietnamese mammy and her Irish mammy, and both are equally important. If it was possible for Georgia and I to meet her one day, that would be great. Our arrangement is that every year I send eight photographs, so maybe the mum can get to see the pictures. It may be her lifeline, knowing that her daughter is happy and that she is very much loved."
The waiting game
New proposals to shorten waiting lists for adoption assessment at a cost of €1 million will be announced tomorrow by Brian Lenihan, the Minister of State for Health and Children, at the annual conference of the International Adoption Association (IAA) in Dublin. He also told The Irish Times this week that he believes inter-country adoption may soon become a thing of the past, due to growing international opposition.
Waiting times for inter-country adoption assessments vary from eight weeks to 45 months, depending which health service area covers the case. When lengthy application procedures required by countries offering children for adoption are added on, some adopters wait up to six years before receiving a child. Pressure on the system has intensified due to an increase in the total number of applicants for inter-country adoption from 232 in 2000 to 1,033 in 2004, as well as the increase in the number of Declarations of Eligibility and Suitability to Adopt Abroad from 282 in 2000 to 461 in 2004. Additional pressure has been created by the requirement for regular post-adoption assessments.
The whole-time equivalent of only 46 social work staff are allocated to inter-country adoption assessments, compared to 38.7 in 2000, a shortage understood to be caused by the reluctance of social workers to work in the area of adoption. HSE employment ceilings are also an issue here.
The HSE is reviewing its inter-country adoption services and hopes to cut the average waiting time for assessment to 12 months.
This is good news for the 2,000 members of the IAA, but it comes at a time when a more fundamental problem outside the Government's control threatens to close the door on inter-country adoption.
Brian Lenihan says that "inter-country adoption may soon become impossible due to the growing negative feeling about it internationally". For example, Russia - the most popular source country of children for Irish adopters - responded rapidly to an outcry over the deaths of three Russian-born adopted children in the US this year, as a result of physical abuse and neglect, by closing the door on foreign adoption. Our own Government has argued at a diplomatic level, in Moscow, for a long-term multi-country adoption agreement between Russia and the State. However, the Russian duma will soon vote on legislation aimed at banning foreign adoption in favour of domestic adoption within Russia.
The fact that the State has one of the finest, most impartial and child-centred assessment systems in the world is irrelevant. Many of the source countries for orphaned children have seen children and their birth mothers pay a tragic price, because those countries had allowed unscrupulous, private adoption brokers to operate what has effectively been a lucrative market in child trade.
The international media have exposed horror stories of children from various countries being abducted and sold to the highest bidder, as well as the experiences of birth mothers who were pressured to sign adoption papers and later fought to get their children back.
The case of Tristan Dowse - who was adopted by an Irishman and his Azerbaijani wife, and returned to an Indonesian orphanage after almost two years - highlights the problems when adoption doesn't work out, although the assessment and legal processes in Tristan's adoption were outside the State's control.
The adoption of Irish children by foreign adopters was banned by the State in 1959, when it emerged that thousands of Irish children were auctioned off by US adoption providers, sometimes to homes that had not been properly assessed. The countries that have turned against inter-country adoption, such as Romania and Russia, are repeating our own history - which may bring heartbreak for the many prospective Irish adopters who believe that responsibly-conducted inter-country adoption is a humanitarian act.
