Does Deborah-lee Furness have the interests of orphans at heart? Is she a worthy exemplar as patron of National Adoption Awareness Week?The following extracts from an interview by Andrew Denton (program: "Enough Rope") may let the reader decide:
Andrew Denton: Oscar’s adopted and you were there at his birth, what’s your relationship with his birth mum?
Deborra-Lee Furness: Well, we broke all the rules. There, there’s a way of going about it and we did it in Los Angeles and the birth mother comes from, she was from Iowa, and she comes to Los Angeles about two weeks before the baby’s expected and you put them up in a hotel and you, you have you know obviously see them, but you keep it at a distance. Well she was a young girl from Iowa and she was scared of being in Los Angeles, so she stayed with us, with her 14 month old. So we were like this crazy family, we’d be going, my mother was there and we were all there, so. We, we had her with us. And I sort of, you know there are rules but every situation is unique, and here is this woman going to give me the greatest gift of my life and I want to look after her. And so you know we were told not to do certain things but for us it worked. Hugh and I were there in the room when he was being born, the doctor said you know here he comes and I’m like with the camera taking photos, and there was like tears and photos and Hugh cut the cord and he was put straight into my arms, and I, I had kept in touch with the birth mother, which again is not necessarily the way it is, but I think people don’t stay in touch because of fear. And I had nothing to be scared of. What, there’s no fear, he’s my son, and so I, I you know I don’t call her every week, I mean but once a year I’ll sort of be in touch and see how she’s doing and this is a young girl who at 22 this was her fourth baby.
The Article that tells of Oscar's mothers suicide, with caption
"She was very distraught
over never being able to see
her son Oscar"
