Drinking my coffee, I listened to my colleague Rachel describing children’s homes filled with orphaned babies in Nepal. It upset me to think of children in need of love, particularly as I wanted nothing more than to hold a baby in my arms. It was early 2005 and I’d met Rachel through my role as Fundraising Manager for The Leprosy Mission in Peterborough, as she and her husband ran the charity’s specialist hospital in Anandaban, Nepal.
Now they were visiting the UK as part of their work, and I’d confided in Rachel about how my husband Paul and I had endured six heartbreaking years of fertility issues and devastating early miscarriages due to me having polycystic ovary syndrome. We’d been considering adoption, and with Rachel’s words about Nepali children weighing heavy, I spoke to Paul later that night. "Why don’t we adopt a child from Nepal?" I said.
He was really keen, so we spent months filling in forms and attending meetings and assessments. After being approved by an adoption panel 12 months after we’d started we excitedly decorated our spare room with pastel paint and handmade bunting. Another colleague in Nepal, Shovakhar, and his wife Laxmi offered to help, representing us at meetings with Nepali adoption officials.
But we hadn’t bargained on administration issues in Nepal. After two years, we still hadn’t been matched with a child. One day in 2007 I was so upset I took a paintbrush and splodged cream paint across the nursery walls, effectively whit.