Singapore — Ms Hazel Poa, a Non-Constituency Member of Parliament from the Progress Singapore Party, talked openly about her two sons in a moving video uploaded by The Royal Singapore (TRS).
TRS featured Ms Poa in its series of Singaporeans’ Stories, entitling the episode “The Adoptive Mother.”
“Most people on this platform know me as a politician. but here’s a different side of me that you are probably unfamiliar with,” she wrote in an Instagram post.
In it, she thanked TRS for having “capturing my story beautifully”, adding that “Adoption is one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life.”
Ms Poa and her husband adopted two boys, who are now 14 and 15 years old.
In the TRS video, Ms Poa highlighted something that perhaps many fail to consider regarding the adoption process, which is how the extended family feels about it.
The NCMP said she thought all along that her parents took her and her husband’s adoption of the two boys “very well.”
“It was only quite a few years later that my mum initially confessed to me that initially when the baby first came, she still felt that it was other people’s child.”
Ms Poa, now 51, said that a few years into her marriage when she and her husband were planning on starting a family, she was put on medication that would increase the chances of her getting pregnant.
Unfortunately, she reacted badly to the medication.
“That’s when we started thinking seriously about adoption as an option,” she told TRS.
She added that neither she nor her husband felt that being biologically related was all that important.
“Children are children, you know?” Ms Poa said.
Of course, not everything was smooth sailing. She recalls having gone to the doctor with her children and having no idea of their medical history.
Ms Poa also said that since adoptive children can differ quite a bit in temperament from their parents, she sometimes finds it challenging to understand her sons’ motivations, likes and dislikes.
Another challenge was other people’s perspectives, although she admitted that if her mother had never told her of the difficulty she had in adjusting her thinking that the boys were not “other people’s” children, Ms Poa never would have known how her mother felt.
Her parents, as well as her grandmother, lived with them, and therefore, the NCMP said, there were more people to consider than in families where it’s just the parents with the children.
Ms Poa added that she and her husband had been open with the children from the beginning, and so it was not difficult for the boys to grow up knowing “You didn’t grow up in Mummy’s tummy.”
For prospective adoptive parents, she said, the most important thing is one’s mindset. If they are able to put aside the idea that the child you’re raising isn’t your biological child, then there are no real issues concerning adoption.
She added, though, that it is important to communicate this to the people in your household, to make sure they are completely on board with the idea of adoption. /TISG
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PSP Mother’s Day: Honouring Hazel Poa, mother of 2 adopted sons