Ismail and his wife married quite young and weren’t too interested in having children right away. They decided that they wanted to enjoy their life together and focus on other things for the time being. Over the years, Ismail came across a few different Islamic courses exploring the concept of adoption and learnt that the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was adopted.
When they decided to start a family of their own, Ismail and his wife struggled to conceive and decided to go through IVF to help their chances. Ismail was disturbed at the effects IVF had on his wife, and couldn’t handle seeing her in such a bad way. The drugs that were given to her during the IVF treatment were having an adverse effect on her body and mind, and he decided to look into other avenues to start his family. Upon discussing the idea of adoption with his wife, who was wholeheartedly on board, they decided to forgo any further fertility treatments and move forward with adopting a child.
Ismail explains to us that when they first contacted their local council, the reaction to finding out the couple were Pakistani was bad. They told them that there weren’t any children for them to adopt, and they couldn’t be helped any further. Coincidentally, Ismail met up with a friend two weeks later who had adopted and went through a different council and was successful in his search. He passed the number on to Ismail, and explained to him that finding a good council is a bit like the lottery and you don’t have to go through your local council. Ismail wants prospective adopters to know that it’s important to do a fair deal of research before settling when it comes to choosing a council.
Once they were happy with their council, the process to find a child took 6 months. It took another 3 months to get their son home. Ismail and his wife were pretty flexible in terms of the age, race of the child etc so the process was fastened up. He stresses to us if you are going to adopt a child, please be willing to hang up the idea that the child has to be from a Muslim background.
When asked if his family had any reservations, Ismail explained that he spoke in detail to his family beforehand, and because of his own experience within the adoption and fostering sector, he was able to preempt the questions that were going to come his way. He left no stone unturned and spoke to multiple scholars before making any steps to adopt. When he had the conversation about his decision with his family, he said that you should discuss adoption with your family from a place of confidence. Make it known that you aren’t asking for permission, you’re simply explaining what you’re going to do, so that alleviates any room for unwanted negative opinions.
Ismail and his wife have been extremely open with their son about his adoption story quite early on. Following the Islamic rules on adoption, they wanted to be completely transparent with their child. Using terms such as ‘tummy mummy’ has helped their son to understand the concept of adoption. They read him various children’s books on adoption and have gently approached conversations with him about how he came to be a part of their family. Ismail stresses to us that he hasn’t done his son any favours by adopting him – it’s the other way around.
In terms of letterbox contact with the biological parents, they have kept in contact with them but have yet to receive a response. Ismail and his wife have decided to continue to update their son’s biological parents with his progress – response or not, so that their child knows in the future that they did try for him.
Ismail wants prospective Muslim adopters to reach out to My Adoption Family for helpful advice, including factual Islamic advice, for those confused about where to begin. He urges all adopters to keep an open mind, and realise that this isn’t a ‘designer baby’ and you have to realise that you may be dealing with children who have experienced severe traumas. He says make the most of services such as the ‘buddy service’ which helps connect approved adopters to prospective adopters – something that helped him enormously.
