My story began 25 years ago. When I was in high school, the mathematics teacher took us to an orphanage. Since that day, I have been fascinated by the question of how come and why all these children without a home or family. When I was 15 years old, I knew that I wanted to help these children, and I knew that one day I would surely do. I didn't know when or how, but I was sure it would happen. Years passed and I graduated from university. I preferred to visit the same orphanage and watch the girls grow up. I worked for the first time in 2001, and at the same time the orphanage asked for volunteers to support the new children financially. I decided that with my first salary, I would support one of the girls. After years, my relationship with her and other 7 girls remained strong. I felt that no matter how much love, money, and time we spent with them, it would never be like to be loved by a family of theirs in a home. Their decisions weren’t in their hands. Among those 8 girls, only two remained in touch with me and our relationship grew stronger by time. They are 20 years old and they study in Cairo University. Every time I try to do kafala for those two girls, Ministry of Social Solidarity refuse along with my family because I was unmarried and still young. They would always tell me that what I am doing is enough; I couldn’t agree with them because I was determined that I would do kafala when I get married and raise both of my two children and breastfeed them together. Now, I am 40 years old and unmarried. I am happy and proud of my decisions and all the expriences that made me who I am now. After a while, new laws were released, and it became possible to do kafala even if I am not married. I can now do kafala for my future daughter, raise her in a safe home and provide her with love and care. All those children deserve a safe home. They don’t deserve to be left out. They didn’t choose their circumstances. I knew about the new laws from the Facebook page: Adoption Story in Egypt. Since then, I followed Rasha Mekky, liked her story and was about to get in touch with her. I talked to her about my fears of the whole experience. She supported me and taught me a lot. On June, I found the link of the adoption application by the Ministry of Social Solidarity online. I finally took the decision and applied. I finished all the papers by the 30th of June. It was an official holiday, but weirdly enough I was able to submit my file this day. I was going to stay at my grandfather’s place but I couldn’t find the lease. However, officials helped me and made me sign an agreement that I would inform them of my new home, if I left that one. My biggest fear was telling my dad. I decided to visit him in Sahel. His first reponse was NO of course. I kept trying to convince him 4 days in a row. He was afraid that I might not be aware of how huge this step is. He didn’t want me to break my heart and lose the life I love. It would be hard for a single mother to be responsible solely of a kid. I was supposed to get back to Cairo for the social worker visit. My father wasn’t against the idea. I am sure that he will be the best grandfather to my daughter. I got a call on Sunday the 5th of July by the social worker. The visit report was positive, and the committee visit will be on the 15th of July. I couldn’t believe that in less than 10 days, I will have all the papers to have a family of my own. I started to look at the orphanages around me in Cairo. I saw more than 7 girls, their ages ranged from two and a half months to a year and two months, but my daughter was not one of them, she was not in Cairo at all. A week ago, I got a call from a surrogate mother who was looking for a girl like me, and she said that she went to Suez and saw two girls there, and she was not confident in her decision. She sent me their pictures, and I asked her to pray and decide. Then she decided to sponsor one of them, “Mariam,” and she asked me if I had found my daughter or not yet. She suggested that I check the photo of the other girl. At that time, I thought that I was not affected by the pictures she had sent. I asked her to send me other pictures. She sent me a picture of a girl as beautiful as the moon. My heart skipped a beat. I knew that she was exactly 27 days old. This means that she was born on the 20th of June. I was overwhelmed when I remember that I dreamed that day of my deceased friend’s father taking me by the hand to the gate of heaven and making me sit next to the Prophet in a reserved place for me. And I remembered the noble hadith (may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, he said: I and the one who takes care of an orphan are like these in heaven, and he pointed with his index and middle fingers). So, this was it. I traveled to Suez and saw my daughter Ghalia. She was one month old and I was supposed to wait another two months so that I could take her with me into our home. For two whole months, I kept waiting. They were the longest two months in my life. In these two months I will start the artificial feeding course so that I can breastfeed her as soon as she arrives. I believe that breastfeeding creates a special relationship between mother and baby. Moreover, it strengthens the immune system. I will do my best to raise her well and make her the happiest girl in the world. Everything she dreams of will be there. My family and I will provide her with the best life. We appreciate her. Ghalia now has her own family forever. You have enlightened our lives, Ghalia.

I will talk about the first time I got married and discovered that my husband and I had a problem with having children. Of course, we suffered a lot from people’s words and their looks. We had enough of people’s talk like “Work to keep yourself occupied” or “Did you find any treatment? Poor you” or “When will you have children?!” I will never be able to forget the words of my mother-in-law on my third wedding anniversary when she told us that she has been waiting for three years already to have a grandchild. This till one day I knew about kafala and I didn’t know that this is an available option in Egypt. When I asked people about this topic, they told me that there is no such thing as adoption, which is forbidden! But if you were to do kafala, you would only support financially and visit them. I was close to despair and began to really think about divorce. At least I would remain single and no one would think why she had no children. Until I came across a video on YouTube of a Kuwaiti family who had their son, and I was surprised that in There is something called kafala. I started searching social media about kafala until I found that there is actually something called kafala that exists in Egypt. I started reading the stories of kafala mothers and found myself with more than one mother, and we became very close friends. They talked to me a lot about their sons and daughters. They were honest with me about their feelings, how noble and sincere they were, and they really made me change my mind completely. At first, I wanted kafala to get rid of people talks and save my marriage, but they helped me to be convinced that sponsorship is not like that, and when I decide to do kafala, I will because I really liked the idea of kafala. I liked the idea that you save a child who is alone without a home, a mother, or a father. I liked the idea that kafala is a guaranteed door to heaven, and the kafala mother and father are the prophet’s neighbors in heaven. I liked the idea that I shouldn’t care about what people say. I will do kafala so that my son or daughter can live with me and be blessed by their presence. And I actually spoke to my husband. We have begun the procedures. First, we were afraid because the matter involved insurance, accounts, and government papers, but every step we took went smoothly. We spent two months completing the procedures, and the awaited moment came. I will not lie to you. I wish it was a girl, and I even chose her name and arranged the room for her with drawings and colors of pink and so on. We went to the Orman House, and we spoke to the director of the house, who shocked us that there were no girls for kafala now, only boys. My husband’s reaction wasn’t positive. It seemed like he didn’t like that there are no girls for kafala. I acted like I am not affected by his reaction, and I returned to the director. And I told her that I wanted to see the children. Frankly, she very much welcomed my decision, and in my husband’s eyes there were the words that I could not say: “Didn’t we agree that we would have a girl?” We entered the room, and the mothers in the house began to bring the children, and my heart beat very fast at seeing those beloved angels. Seven children, each of them one of them is four months old. I was sad by the thought that these children are left out. I felt that I wanted to hug them and tell them that I love you and will not abandon you, but then I came back to reality and found that unfortunately the law and my ability only allow me to sponsor one child. All this while I completely forgot about my husband, so when I looked for him, I found him sitting on a chair carrying one of the children. I was surprised. My husband was crying while holding this baby. I barely see my husband cry. I went to him, stroked him, and told him, “How do you feel?” He felt the same as me. He thought of how much he loved all these children and was sad that he would not be able to help them all. Then he wiped away his tears and kissed the boy and returned him to the mother who was carrying him, and thanked the director of the orphanage and said, “I wanted to do kafala for a girl. I am sorry”. The director was a very respectable woman who appreciated our decision. She gave us the address of another branch of the house. She had information that it had 3 girls from which we could choose our daughter. We thanked her and went to the second branch. Despite the feelings of sadness that we felt at the house, we were very excited, because we felt that we were very close to picking up our daughter. We entered the house and spoke to the director and we explained the situation to her, and we went out to see the girls. Three beautiful girls were three months, four months, and six months old. We loved them very much and took them away and tried to create a bond of feelings with each one of them, but despite my intense love for them, I did not feel that I was a mother to any of them. I began to doubt myself. My friends told me that as soon as I held the child, I would feel that she was my daughter. I started to get nervous and looked at my husband, who understood me right away, and I found him saying to me: “We will not take a child who we do not feel is our daughter. We can go to another house”. The director caught up on the matter and asked us to see the boys. We told her, “We want a girl.” I found that she responded with such a smile, and asked us again to see the boys. We agreed with her, just out of desperation on our part. They started bringing the boys. Two beautiful boys, but I still don’t feel anything towards any of them. I started to cry, so my husband took my hand and asked the director if those are all the children they have or not. She said yes. He said, “Okay, we are sorry that we have bothered you.” While he was still walking, we found one of the mothers coming out with a blanket wrapped around her arm, and no baby parts could be seen from it, no hand, no leg, no head. The blanket seemed to be empty, and I found her saying, “Come on and see who was hiding in the bed,” and she brought it to me. I put the blanket in my arms, unfolded it and looked to find the sweetest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. My son, the first thing I said when I saw him. His features were not visible because of how much he was tiny. I was so happy that I unconsciously started showing my love for the baby. My husband kept thanking God and he was extremely happy that we finally found our son. Hamza was very young. He was 7 days old, and we had to wait until he was three months old so we could take him (the old kafala laws). Three months went by like three years. I visited him every day, and I cried every time I had to leave him. I bought him tiny clothes, and I started a milk production course with a lactation doctor so that I could breastfeed him. We told our family and kept taking pictures of him. My mobile phone was filled with pictures and videos of Hamza. Until the big day came, the day I get to have Hamza. I prepared his clothes, then I breastfed him. Finally, you will be with me, Hamza. I won’t have my heart ache again on leaving you on every visit. I can see you all the time and take you in my arms. May God bless you, my beloved son.

“The day I saw her, I and her father were so confused. We did not feel anything. We were confused and did not know what feeling we were supposed to feel, but after we walked from there, we felt that we missed her greatly and our hearts got attached to her.” I am Marwa Hafez, and I went for kafala after 21 years of marriage without children. I presented it to my husband and he initially refused, but when he learned about the issue of breastfeeding and that the presence of a girl would no longer be forbidden or haram, he agreed that we would go for kafala. We made this decision in June 2021, and we began the journey of preparing the papers and submitted them on the 4th of July, 2021. The day of submitting the papers coincided with the day of Misk’s birth, and the procedures and approvals took about nine months. I swear it was like a pregnancy period. I was suffering during these nine months because I saw my daughter when she was 3 months old. Security check took a long time. I wanted to have her right away because she was sick in the hospital. I used to travel to Minya every 15 days for nine months until I received her on the 17th of March. It was only 4 days before Mother’s Day. It was as if God was comforting my heart and her father’s with her beautiful presence. It was as if my life started again. On that day, Misk came to our place, and we were preparing a party to welcome her. My sisters and my family were all happy. A week after we received her, we held a big party for her in a large hall. We invited all our beloved friends, friends of our friends, relatives and neighbors. All of them were happy and it was a day that we still talk about to this day. Praise be to God, it has been a year since Misk got in my life, and this is the year in which I was born. Every Mother's Day, I hold you in my arms, and every day I hold you in my arms is a Mother’s Day for me. May God not deprive me of her or her presence in our lives, me and her father’s.