On Our Own Tracks

How I got to where I am today…

You know my name, how old I am and what my disability is. But there’s so much more to me than just those three things. I am a girl that has been through more in 21 years, than most people do in their whole life.

Let’s start at the very beginning, shall we? My mum was a maid for a wealthy family in Kolkata, India. And my father was a driver. (According to what the paperwork said.) My mother was young when she had me. Too young to have a child, 16 years old. And my father was a married man.  So my mother had to make a difficult decision to give me up for adoption. At seven days old, I was taken to an orphanage, where I stayed for 5 months.

After five months in an orphanage,  I was adopted by an Australian family. My adopted family had already adopted another child: My 4 year old brother. They lived in Hay,  which is just outside of Wagga. It was very remote and we lived on a farm, so the nearest town was two hours away. We were a (somewhat) happy family. But when I was three years old, I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.  After finding out about my CP, my adopted mother was not coping very well. She never wanted a child with a disability

When I was 4 years old, a family friend offered to take me in for a few months,  so I can start school in sydney and also be able to give my family a break. But my mother packed up all of my belongings for me, that’s when Jenny (my foster mother and family friend) knew I wasn’t going back.  After a few months with Jenny, my parents made a heartbreaking decision to put me up for re-adoption. So I stayed with Jenny until I found a new family.

Three years later and I still hadn’t found a family.  My mum (Jenny) decided to apply for long term fostering so she could keep me permanently.

I was one of the lucky ones to go into foster care and get a good placement almost straight away.

But some kids aren’t so lucky. I will talk more about that in my next blog.

Bye for now

Marusha