by Prue Leith
Published: 22 May 2010
Published: 22 May 2010
Li Da and Daniel
When we adopted our Cambodian daughter she was 16 months old and her short life had not been good. Li-Da had lost her father to the Khmer Rouge. Two mothers had died on her (the first was killed by an American rocket, the second, an Englishwoman, died suddenly of pleural pneumonia), and she'd been sent back for adoption by a third, a classy Parisienne, because the woman's marriage had fallen apart.
We were advised on all sides not to adopt her. My GP said it would be traumatic for our year-old son, Daniel. Bad enough to have a newborn sharing your space, but an older sibling – disaster.
A Harley Street psychiatrist, watching Daniel flinging papers out of the bottom drawer of his desk, said, don't worry about this little bruiser. But don't adopt the girl. She cannot not be traumatised. My mum said, think of the poor thing at school. Kids hate foreigners, especially if they aren't white.
Even the classy Parisienne warned that Li-Da was difficult: she liked to drink her bath water, ate a lot and cried when left alone. Well, so might you, I thought, if you'd been through war, starvation and being bombed.
Not that I didn't have doubts. I was tormented by the thought that I could never love her as much as Daniel. Who would I save in a sinking boat? Would she always be second best?
But Li-Da overrode all doubts in 24 hours. To win my mother over I had planned to give both babies lunch and a sleep and then present Li-Da, washed, refreshed and fed, in a pristine white dress and frilly knickers to greet her grandmamma.
Li-Da ate the fish fingers and sausages with speed and concentration. But when, tummy tight as a drum, cheeks stuffed like a hamster, she could no longer swallow a mouthful and I wanted to lift her from the highchair, she screamed. I took advantage of the open mouth and hooked out the food. Louder screams. So I put her in the cot with tear-stained greasy cheeks, filthy Babygro, sausage in one hand and fish finger in the other.
Which is how her gran, arriving early, first saw her. And fell for her.
There was a moment of panic that first night. I went into the nursery to have one last look at the two of them sweetly tuckedup in their side-by-side cots. And as I opened the door I was aware of an emotion, somewhere between horror and rage. The nursery smelled different, not like Daniel, not right. For a split second I wanted to throw Li-Da out of the window. I started to cry, wailing to my husband that we should never have done it, that it would never work.
The next morning, when I went into their room, the alien smell had gone. There was just the warm, lovely smell of baby. My babies.
Daniel and Li-Da adored each other. For a few brief weeks they spoke that curious gobbledegook language that twins sometimes develop before they can speak. It is disconcerting to see your babies having a conversation about you. Once Li-Da pointed at me and then they both fell over backwards laughing.
Babies loosen the tongues of complete strangers. My two were playing in the park sandpit while I watched between two other mums. One said, 'I'm sorry, but I have to say this: I think it is morally wrong to pluck a child from its roots and force it into a different culture.' I was just about to hit her with Li-Da's roots of genocide and war when the woman to my left jumped to my defence. 'I think you are just wonderful. To adopt a baby from one of those countries, especially when she is so plain and so black!'
All this remembering is brought on by the birth of Daniel's son, my first grandchild. To see both grannies and grown up Auntie Li-Da (now a slim, glamorous 35) all drooling over the infant Malachi provokes the thought that love must start with, and get sort of fixed by, the smell of vulnerability. Babies emit tiny signals that are pleas for acceptance and protection, and that we cannot resist.
After that first panicky night, I always knew who I'd save first in the sinking boat. Whoever was nearer.
We were advised on all sides not to adopt her. My GP said it would be traumatic for our year-old son, Daniel. Bad enough to have a newborn sharing your space, but an older sibling – disaster.
A Harley Street psychiatrist, watching Daniel flinging papers out of the bottom drawer of his desk, said, don't worry about this little bruiser. But don't adopt the girl. She cannot not be traumatised. My mum said, think of the poor thing at school. Kids hate foreigners, especially if they aren't white.
Even the classy Parisienne warned that Li-Da was difficult: she liked to drink her bath water, ate a lot and cried when left alone. Well, so might you, I thought, if you'd been through war, starvation and being bombed.
Not that I didn't have doubts. I was tormented by the thought that I could never love her as much as Daniel. Who would I save in a sinking boat? Would she always be second best?
But Li-Da overrode all doubts in 24 hours. To win my mother over I had planned to give both babies lunch and a sleep and then present Li-Da, washed, refreshed and fed, in a pristine white dress and frilly knickers to greet her grandmamma.
Li-Da ate the fish fingers and sausages with speed and concentration. But when, tummy tight as a drum, cheeks stuffed like a hamster, she could no longer swallow a mouthful and I wanted to lift her from the highchair, she screamed. I took advantage of the open mouth and hooked out the food. Louder screams. So I put her in the cot with tear-stained greasy cheeks, filthy Babygro, sausage in one hand and fish finger in the other.
Which is how her gran, arriving early, first saw her. And fell for her.
There was a moment of panic that first night. I went into the nursery to have one last look at the two of them sweetly tuckedup in their side-by-side cots. And as I opened the door I was aware of an emotion, somewhere between horror and rage. The nursery smelled different, not like Daniel, not right. For a split second I wanted to throw Li-Da out of the window. I started to cry, wailing to my husband that we should never have done it, that it would never work.
The next morning, when I went into their room, the alien smell had gone. There was just the warm, lovely smell of baby. My babies.
Daniel and Li-Da adored each other. For a few brief weeks they spoke that curious gobbledegook language that twins sometimes develop before they can speak. It is disconcerting to see your babies having a conversation about you. Once Li-Da pointed at me and then they both fell over backwards laughing.
Babies loosen the tongues of complete strangers. My two were playing in the park sandpit while I watched between two other mums. One said, 'I'm sorry, but I have to say this: I think it is morally wrong to pluck a child from its roots and force it into a different culture.' I was just about to hit her with Li-Da's roots of genocide and war when the woman to my left jumped to my defence. 'I think you are just wonderful. To adopt a baby from one of those countries, especially when she is so plain and so black!'
All this remembering is brought on by the birth of Daniel's son, my first grandchild. To see both grannies and grown up Auntie Li-Da (now a slim, glamorous 35) all drooling over the infant Malachi provokes the thought that love must start with, and get sort of fixed by, the smell of vulnerability. Babies emit tiny signals that are pleas for acceptance and protection, and that we cannot resist.
After that first panicky night, I always knew who I'd save first in the sinking boat. Whoever was nearer.
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