An elementary school teacher from WORCESTERSHIRE spoke about her path to adopting a boy from Uganda after taking care of him during a volunteer trip.
Emilie Larter, now 29, first met her son Adam in 2014 when she was given the job of looking after him after losing his mother when he was only five days old.
Ms. Larter said it was love at first sight and although the then 22-year-old admits to taking care of the newborn, she was disheartening – she extended her two-month trip to seven months so she could stay with him and moved permanently in 2016 to Uganda to be able to adopt him.
Emilie and Adam, now six, appeared on ITV’s This Morning Friday after finally returning to their Leigh Sinton home.
It wasn’t long before viewers fell in love with Adam, who hid behind a pillow and said the best thing about his mom was “going to bed with her”.
However, adopting Adam was not an easy process.
Emilie said: “Everyone has a very different experience out there – mine was particularly unlucky. I moved out to adopt him just before he turned two.
“You have to look after a year before you can apply for adoption, but we kept going wrong – whether paperwork got lost, court appointments canceled, paperwork misspelled names – it was just one thing at a time.
“The adoption process in Uganda took three years and then we were there a total of four and a half years before we came back.”
She continued, “It was difficult and then Covid struck. The day we had his appointment to get his passport there was a lock and everything was closed. That just added more delays. ‘
Emilie remembered the moment when she and Adam landed at Birmingham Airport and her parents – whom Adam had chatted with for years but had never met in person – came to pick her up.
“It was emotional. I had imagined it for so many years, but it was strange that it actually happened. He gets along very well with them. ”
The process is still ongoing for Emilie and Adam as adoption has been accepted in Uganda – Emilie has yet to officially adopt him in the UK.
She said, “Even though he is here on a visa, he has a visa to stay here, he can go to school, get medical care, anything, I am not legally recognized as his mother in this country.
“I have to go through the whole adoption process all over again. I have social workers for that and all, and we’re filing a lawsuit. But I’m not worried because he’s here with me. ”