“I was given up for adoption the day I was born” - Says Gina Maya Iyer

At Momsters we believe in celebrating real moms, and this is the story of one such Mom. Gina Maya Iyer, says she was given up for adoption the day she was born in America. She was adopted by parents of Indian origin and shifted to India. Gina narrates her happy story, as she also says she always wanted to adopt a baby herself as well. Gina is now based in Mumbai and this is her story which was published in Bangalore Mirror.

My name is Gina Maya Iyer and I am an adopted child. I also am a mother of a beautiful adopted baby girl.

My story is a wonderful story and is the reason I have adopted as well. I was born on the 19th of April 1972 in Dallas Texas USA. My birth mother was an 18 year old , Caucasian woman with beautiful blond hair. My birth father was a handsome African American man. I have never seen them or spoken to them but this is how my file described them.

I was given up for adoption the day I was born. I was placed in a loving and caring foster home when I was 9 months. My foster parents , Ginger and Fred Beamis were my family for 4 years. I had four foster siblings who I still keep in touch with. I loved them beyond belief but I always knew that I was not there to stay.

Since I was a bi racial child it was difficult to place me. My foster mother worked in a day care center. One day a beautiful young Indian woman walked into the center looking for a job her name was, Jayashree Chattterjee.

Little did we know that this day would be the day that I found a mother and she found a daughter. My parents Jayashree and Kallol Chatterjee adopted me when I was 4 ½ years old. My brother Rohit was born 1 year later and so in a year I had a new mother , father and a new baby brother.

When I was 9years old my parents divorced and Rohit and I moved to India with my mother. In a short time my mother married a wonderful man named Arun Thiagarajan.

By the time I was 11 years old my mother had another son Shiva and after ten months she had another son Nikhil. So by the time I was 12 I had an enormous family . I grew up with the love of so many people. Not only did I gain a family, I gained a country as well. Nobody looking at me would ever guess that I am not Indian. God has been so good to me that I really felt the need to do the same for another little girl. And that brings me to My Daughter Tara.

My husband Ram and I got married on the 11th of October 1997 . My husband and I had decided even before we got married that one of our children would be adopted. Ram knew that this was very important to me and was so supportive . We approached a few agencies in Bombay but were not very happy with their response so we decided that we would adopt from Bangalore. We gave in our home study in February 2000 and by April they had a baby for us to come and see.
This news could not have come at a better time since Ram had just lost his mother it provided some sort of distraction for him. I left for Bangalore immediately.

My husband & I went to see her the very next day. She was so beautiful , small fragile and so perfect in every way. I held her and she fell asleep in my arms. I think she knew that she was the one I had waited for all my life. Our adoption procedure started right away and in a few months everything was done. Tara has now officially become ours.

Tara is the very joy of our lives. We sometimes sit and wonder what we did without her for so many years. Tara has made us look at ourselves a little more differently. We now have something so precious to live for. Thank you Tara you are the reason that your Father and I live each day. We love you my beautiful baby girl and thank god everyday for you. Without you there could be no "us".