Double adoption joy for York couple

By Bridget Payton
BBC York & North Yorkshire Contributor

York couple, Bridget and Mark Payton have adopted twins from Ethiopia

Four months ago a York couple realised their dream of becoming parents when they adopted two little girls from Ethiopia. Bridget Payton tells us how it all happened...

In late June of this year, I took a flight from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia back to the UK. Across the aisle from me was my husband, Mark, sleeping as best he could in an uncomfortable seat.

Cradled in my arms was Eve, a seven month old baby girl who, just three weeks earlier in an Ethiopian courtroom, had become my adoptive daughter.

And in my husband's arms was her twin sister, Lilah. I looked down at Eve's sleeping head and remember thinking "I can't believe it's actually happened. They've actually let us fly home with these gorgeous little girls". It made me realise that until that moment, I hadn't dared to believe that it was really true.

The couple thought hard about adopting from the developing world

It had been a long journey from York to Addis and an even longer one from the day in January 2006 when we made the decision that we'd like to adopt from abroad.

Far from the 'airlift' that celebrities like Madonna and Angelina Jolie appear to achieve (in fact, I think they don't, but that's the impression given), we had been through years of scrutiny and investigation by the UK authorities.

Paper checks, CRB checks, financial enquiries, criminal checks with the FBI (don't even ask…), lengthy and intrusive interviews and appearances before panels of decision makers, before we found ourselves approved and walking into an orphanage on the other side of the world to meet our daughters.

And, of course, in addition to all the questions that we were being asked, we were asking some pretty searching ones ourselves about the morality and ethics of adopting from the developing world.

How would we ensure that we affirmed our daughters' birth culture? How would we keep them in touch with where they'd come from? Most importantly - in an age where inter-country adoption has been tainted with stories of corruption and trafficking - how would we ensure that our daughters' journey to us was entirely above board?

It was a long journey from York to Addis and an even longer one in time

In that orphanage, though, the issues seemed to become very clear. Childrens' identity and sense of self-worth doesn't come from their 'culture' alone.

It comes from growing up in a home where they're loved and affirmed; where there are people who wipe their noses and read them bedtime stories and play peek-a-boo with them; where they have arms to run into when they're upset and laps to crawl onto when they're feeling insecure.

Institutions, no matter how well they manage to meet physical needs, can never provide that. So I will always argue that children need homes and families, wherever that might be.

And there we were, looking into the faces of two little girls who needed all that; maybe as much as we needed them to disrupt our lives, turn our tidy home on its head and challenge and exhaust us.

We've been home with Lilah and Eve for four months now, and we're looking forward to celebrating their first birthday this month.

But there's another date we'll be celebrating every year which will be just as precious to us as their birthday: that day in June when we became, against all the odds, a family.