[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sa.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Welcome back to the New Zealand Voice for Life Pulse podcast.
In today's episode, we're sharing a story that is both deeply personal and quietly challenging.
In New Zealand, adoption is often spoken about as an option, but in reality, it is rarely seen or seriously considered. And behind that gap are real lives that are shaped by the decision of those who choose it. This is one of those stories you're about to hear. The journey of a little boy named Charlie, who is now nearly five, whose life began in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
He was conceived through sexual assault and born with a severe heart condition. He was given little chance of survival, but he did survive. And what followed was a series of courageous decisions. A birth mother who chose life in the midst of trauma, and an adoptive family who said yes, despite knowing the complexity, the cost and the unknowns.
This conversation shows the reality of open adoption in New Zealand, the emotional journey of fostering, and why adoption remains a largely invisible option for many women facing unexpected pregnancies.
It also challenges a deep assumption in our culture that life marked by suffering is somehow less worth living or less valuable.
Charlie's life is a powerful reminder that even in the most difficult circumstances, good can emerge. Please share this episode with people that you think might find it interesting.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Charlie was born with a really serious heart condition, and also he was conceived through sexual assault.
It felt really like a really big privilege and, like, quite special that we had been chosen. That's one of the top reasons people give having an abortion as justification as rape.
So I was like, that's amazing that we get to be part of a story where Mum's chosen life and the heart condition was undetected because the pregnancy was detected, like she didn't know she was pregnant. He was nine weeks old when we got called. He had already had open heart surgery and I think a couple of other procedures. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with him for a while. And basically, yeah, he was born in heart failure, but it's a really rare heart condition. He's got other developmental, like, physical developmental anomalies as well, like one kidney. And he had some spinal issues. And I've got a cluster of congenital birth defects. Not that you'd know to look at him, but yeah, internally there's a lot going on. I think the chance of that operation being successful was about 30%.
So they didn't contact any prospective adoptive parents, although it was always Milo's intention to adopt out because they didn't think he was going to survive.
Understandably, once that seemed more likely that he would survive than not. She chose us, which was pretty amazing. We already have four kids already. You feel a bit greedy. But yeah. So he'd been with the foster carer that whole time because he'd been placed in foster care as they do if they're going to be adopted out. So she was lovely and had been with him the whole time in hospital.
When we met him, he was back in his local hospital and we took him home straight from hospital.
He ended up needing a second open heart surgery a few months later. And all the legal stuff, usually by the time it's finally signed off in court be closer to a year old. So there's two court appearances, there's the initial one and then the second one. It's all officially signed off. They rushed that through when he was five months old while I was in starship and attending via Zoom with him because he was going to another high risk surgery and he was a bit legally in no man's land. So they wanted everyone to know exactly who he belonged to.
The mortality rate for babies who's with this heart condition when it's this severe is quite high. So things were looking quite bleak at that point. But obviously he's still alive, so he's much more stable now. We didn't know if he was going to make it to a year old because of all his heart. As medical staff, one of the things that comes up on some of the Facebook pages, I'm on with parents whose babies are diagnosed with some of these things early on before they're born.
I just don't know if I can handle seeing suffer like that considering an abortion. They say that he might not live for very long. It kind of breaks my heart because Charlie was in that category. If they had known he totally order fitted that category. I feel like on two counts, he's the sort of child that people would justify an abortion for. But people look at him now, you'd never know anything was wrong with him. He's just like a. Runs around like a four year old boy.
[00:05:20] Speaker C: Why did you start fostering and adopting? You've got three of your own kids, you've gone through the baby phase.
Obviously you love children, but where did this start for you?
[00:05:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it's something I always wanted to do. I always have had this idealized image of rescuing kids from orphanages and things. As a child it seemed like the ideal sort of thing, just collect unwanted children and orphans. So that was part of my imaginative kind of play growing up. And then. So we're a Christian Family. So the other thing is like a natural expression of, I think, our love for God and others.
Along with that, we got married and we had our family. I had really difficult pregnancies. I just was like, I can't keep having our own children.
So it wasn't that foster care was a new idea to us, but definitely the fact that I felt like we had more room in our family. But it wasn't wise for me to carry on having children.
When our youngest was two was when we first started the process of foster care. So, yeah, I think he was probably three by the time we had a placement. And we mainly fostered newborns. I think we've had 14 or 15 all up over the years.
[00:06:38] Speaker C: How long do you normally have them for?
[00:06:40] Speaker A: On average, it really varies. The longest was just over a year and the shortest was one night.
[00:06:48] Speaker C: Wow, that's just astounding. What's it like?
[00:06:53] Speaker A: That's really brutal on your heart. People say, I don't know how you do it. I couldn't give them back. You don't have a choice.
And I think for me, because some people say, oh, just hold yourself back a bit because you don't want to get too attached. I say, no, because they deserve someone who is all in. They deserve to be loved as though they are our own. Like, they need that. So I wouldn't feel like I was giving them what they needed if I didn't do that. At the end of the day, it's choosing like, I would rather suffer that loss and try and ease the suffering for them than not. But, yeah, it is hard. That's why we stopped doing it, because I just.
I was like, I can't do this anymore.
It feels like you lose a child. Like, it feels as significant a loss as if they had died. You're made to feel a bit like you've done something wrong, to care that much. You've got the system trying to, oh, you've got too attached, you shouldn't want to keep them. They just want you to be babysitters and not get in the way, not advocate too hard, not question decisions.
And so it's really quite a thought.
Emotional journey. And yeah, that is really hard to
[00:08:03] Speaker C: deal with, especially when you have your other kids. So for you guys, the adoption. When did it sort of transition from fostering, then you started considering adoption?
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Yeah, because at first I just said, look, could we just be considered for permanency? And I think in that time there was a couple of kids that we knew of that we had put our hands up for that were looking for long term carers here. So initially it was just putting ourselves out there for permanency for kids we knew already needed permanency were already in the system. And then when that didn't go anywhere, sort of was like, I know there are kids out there who need a home, so if you don't want us to take any from New Zealand, maybe we should look overseas. That was probably a year to two years in that journey. When we met with a couple of the adoption social workers to do their training, we were already in the system and were experienced when they said, look, I would really love you in the domestic port. Which did really surprise me. They're like, since you're already in our system as caregivers, it's pretty easy to be approved and you could be in that temporarily while you go through the long process of being approved for overseas adoption. So we did that and yeah, we got a phone call within a couple of months about Charlie. We went into the domestic pool saying we were open to a child with higher needs that might be harder to find adoptive parents for.
We knew that if we did get called there would be something extra in that story.
[00:09:42] Speaker C: Can you explain the exact process of open adoption in New Zealand? How does it work?
[00:09:48] Speaker A: There's the adoption polls are people who have gone through the approval process. You have basically a little profile of your family where you talk about sale photos and when somebody is considering adopting out there, they maybe they will contact once they've decided, they'll say the kind of family they want and they'll be shown a selection of profiles that sort of meet what they're looking for and they get to look through them, they get to choose one and once they've chosen someone, then social worker will contact that couple and arrange a face to face meeting with the birth mother. As standard practices that you then meet in person and then yeah, if the birth mother's happy for it to all go ahead, then you go and meet baby and then she will sign the adoption papers with her lawyer. We had to wait for her to do that before taking him home from hospital. But it is, it was hard, I know that it was a hard time. For his birth name. There's a lot of emotions in terms of involvement.
[00:10:49] Speaker C: Is she still involved or what does it look like now for you?
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I think this is so different for every family. When we have that first meeting with her before we meet the baby, we talked about what she would like that to look like and we came to an agreement and it's not legally binding, but just these are the things we've talked about that hasn't ended up being what it's looked like just by her choice.
From our perspective, we have always had a very open door policy, like, you're welcome. We live in different cities, but I've said anytime you want to see him, you're welcome. I send photos and little updates, always update her about medical stuff. And I, for me am just trying to take my cues from her about how much she wants.
[00:11:34] Speaker C: It must be quite a process to try and juggle and navigate.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: It really is.
I think for us. From our perspective, we are very open to whatever she's comfortable with. Yeah, I think there's no perfect way. It is complex and there is always pain. So it's just trying to navigate that sensitively and carefully and lovingly. But I think knowing as well, like you can't fix things, some things are just going to be hard. But that's okay.
[00:12:02] Speaker C: It seems like in the ideal world none of this would be happening. But the reality is that this is the scenario. But what's the best that can come out of it? Some people that are pro abortion would say, just don't make the child go through any pain at all. Totally avoid this scenario altogether with abortion.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
The reality of life is that the suffering isn't just a negative. There's so much love and joy. There are precious jewels to be found in the deep minds of suffering.
Sometimes it is in the really hard places that you find the most precious things. And like Charlie, he is such a precious gift to our family. But he has so much joy in life and he has so much to offer. He brings so much joy to other people.
To have said that because life's a bit hard for him. Like it would be better if he wasn't here.
It's such a terrible thing to say because you don't just miss out on. On the hard things, you miss out on all the good things as well.
And he's such a fighter as well. And the other thing I'd say is he wants to be here. Like he wouldn't be here if he wasn't a fighter. He just did not give up as a baby. And I think it's not just about what people chose for him. Like he, he thought he wanted life. I love that about him.
[00:13:30] Speaker C: The process of adoption in New Zealand is difficult. It's very rare for adoption to even happen.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Yeah, that's because there's not very many babies put up for adoption.
[00:13:42] Speaker C: Why do you think that is?
[00:13:44] Speaker A: I Think it even before the abortion laws changed, it was low, but it's definitely gone down even further since then.
I think there's a really negative view of adoption, that just giving your child away is a terrible thing to do. The other thing is the system doesn't recommend it. I think even orangatamarike, they don't advocate for it. You have to really want it and push for it. And I think there's not a lot of support to do that. I think culturally it's not.
It's a bit of a taboo thing. It doesn't have a great reputation. Historically. People think of closed adoptions. I think closed adoptions in the past and the harm that they've caused have probably contributed to the negativity around adoptions.
If you coming from the foster care, I think there are mothers who that could legitimately be given to them as an option rather than having their babies removed.
[00:14:42] Speaker C: Some people would think wouldn't it be better to support the mother to keep the child before considering an adoption as an option?
[00:14:50] Speaker A: I think the ideal situation is that a baby can stay with his birth mother, but we don't live in a world of ideal situation. And so in reckoning with the brokenness that comes with families and society and there are times where it is better for a baby to live with non biological parents. It's better for their health and their safety, but it's definitely not the ideal.
[00:15:17] Speaker C: We're going to backtrack. Tell me a bit about what it was like the first time you met Charlie, about transition. What was it like for you?
[00:15:27] Speaker A: I was very nervous. There'd been at least two sort of instances where we had thought that we were going to get a baby. One of them was a sibling of our foster child and we had been told that the baby would come to us and then at the last minute didn't. And then there was another baby that they'd been shown our profile and then the baby couldn't come to us.
It didn't really feel like it was happening. I was like, I can't. He's not actually ours. Until she signed the papers. So I was like, emotionally, I really did hold back quite a lot. So I was quite nervous to meet her. I was nervous that she might change her mind, might not like us.
But it went well. We ended up having to do it via zoom. But she was very open to us and it felt like a really positive meeting. And then we went straight up to the hospital afterwards to meet him.
I found it really hard to see him as our child until she had signed the adoption papers. I had previously bought things for babies that we expected to come to us and then didn't and fell like that was quite hard. I just couldn't do it again. And I remember them changing his name to the name we'd chosen for him on the hospital door. And I remember thinking, he's not ours yet. What are you doing?
It took me a while to really fully attach to him, like emotionally. I loved him. I was so hurt from so many other losses. I found it really hard. But then I wanted to be able to give him the best of me that I'd given to all the others. It took months. I think it was more like a trickle of water that gradually turned into a full strength blood. I did have a really clarifying kind of moment where I was like, maybe it's fitting that God chose a mother with a broken heart for a baby with a broken heart.
Which sounds really soppy, but for some reason it just was like, we're both broken in different ways and maybe that's okay.
Yeah.
[00:17:28] Speaker C: If you were going to speak to a mother that's pregnant and scared.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:35] Speaker C: What would you say? How would you encourage them to consider this as an option?
[00:17:41] Speaker A: I'd probably, first of all encourage them to consider keeping their baby if at all they could. But also, if you really feel like you can't parent this child, the one gift you can give them, you can actually give them a life where they are loved in wantons and will thrive. Unless you're quite motivated to look for that option, ask for that option and push for it. You're not volunteered information.
I do think it should be more publicly acknowledged as a legitimate option.
[00:18:21] Speaker D: The Pulse podcast is brought to you by Voice for Life New Zealand. If you enjoyed this show and you think that having a strong pro life voice in the public square is essential, then please support this podcast and all of the other important pro life work that Voice for Life is engaged
[email protected] nz donate that's voiceforlife.org nz donate link in the show notes. Thanks again for tuning in. We'll catch you next time on the Pulse.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: Sam.
