WHY DON'T I have feet, Mummy?

Despite a tragic start, Shelly Shepherd’s little girl has grown into an extraordinary person

- FIONA KINLOCH, LUCY LAING

I was lifting my youngest, Haven, out of the bath one evening when she asked me the question I’d been expecting, yet dreading, since adopting her in 2004. She’d been just 16 months then, and now she was four, peering up at me with her inquisitive brown eyes and casually enquiring why she didn’t have any feet.

Wrapping her in a towel, I pulled her onto my knee, ready to have a very difficult conversation because I’d always promised myself that the moment she asked the question, I’d tell my brave, resilient little girl the truth.

From the moment I cradled my first child, Zachary, in 1983, I knew being a mum was my destiny. Right there and then, I told my husband Rob that I already wanted more. We were only 21 then, but both wanted a big family. Fast-forward 16 years, and that’s exactly what we had.

Zachary had been joined by Hannah in 1985, Haley in 1987, Ivy in 1992, Chloe in 1994, and Sawyer in 1997. It felt like our family was finally complete. Yet, three years later, I attended a talk about international adoption that sparked that familiar yearning. There was an astronomical number of children worldwide, all needing a loving home.

‘I think we should adopt one,’ I told Rob.

He was worried that we already had enough to cope with but, over the next few years, thinking about adopting kept me awake at night.

Finding our daughter

In 2004, Rob finally agreed, and the kids – used to having lots of siblings – were all for it, too, so I started making inquiries.

Then, that November, I heard about a little Vietnamese girl called Haven who was about to be put into a disability shelter because her grandparents were too poor to care for her. You see, at just 16 months old, Haven was a double amputee.