A horoscope, an abandoned child and an adoption

One of my colleagues recently adopted a child and we were chatting about adoptions. He narrated a touching and in some aspects tragic story. An acquaintence of his, a doctor couple at an Ivy League university, adopted a child from India. The child had been abandoned with a note saying that horoscope had foretold of ill-fortune due to the child. The child today grows up in the lap of luxury and is very loved by the extended family too.

Adoptions are a tortuous process in US. The mother chooses who can adopt her child. The ubiquitous lawyers then govern the whole process, of course a lions share of the money negotiated goes to the lawyer. What is worse the mother can, after taking the money in stages, at the last minute say no. No refunds. My colleague went through a harrowing week when the birth-mom just disappeared, at that stage she had collected well over $40,000. Finally she re-appeared and the adoption went through.

Corporations are slowly catching up on extending benefits to adopted children. Like maternity leave, now, adopting parents get a leave to bond with the child.

Recently CNN featured a story about "Orphan train". In US, between 1854-1929, orphans in NY used to ride a train and present themselves for prospective adoptions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_train) . What a deep tragedy. Adoption is one of the noblest act that any parent can do. Even if we cannot adopt let is contribute to children oriented charities and organisations that care for needs of children.