Interesting India Hicks Adoption Story

“The 44-year-old who resides in Bahamas with her partner, interior designer turned hotelier David Flint Wood, decided to take 15-year-old Wesley into her own home last April when his mother Lynne Claire, a waitress on the island died from breast cancer.

Joining her other sons Felix, 14, Amory, 12, Conrad, 9, and Domino, 4, Wesley has now become an official member of the family and India is his legal guardian.

Although her family, especially her mother, expressed concern over the decision to adopt, India felt that she was making the right choice.

Describing how she first got to know Wesley and his mother she said: ‘I first met Wesley when he was in the womb.

‘His mother was a waitress in a restaurant we used to go to. His father absent.

‘I was also pregnant. Lynne and I became friends. Around the age of two Wesley was with us nearly daily. He grew up alongside my own first born child, Felix. They went to their first school together. ‘

But when Wesley was 12 India lost touch with him as he moved to the neighbouring island of Nassau when his mother remarried.

However 18 months later she bumped into him at the airport and he informed her that his mother only had two weeks to live after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Ten days later, Lynne died and India along with her son, Conrad, went to the funeral a local church.

It was there Wesley’s father asked if India could look after his son.

Recalling the chain of events Hicks, who is 678th in line to the throne and was a bridesmaid at Charles and Diana’s wedding, said: ‘Very quickly it was decided that Wesley would move in with us. He arrived the next afternoon with a plastic bin liner.

‘It held his worldly possessions. None of them important, except for the few tattered photographs of his Mum.’

Wesley now spends term-time in Miami, where he lives with an aunt and goes to a Montessori school with specialist help for his dyslexia, and holidays are spent with India. ”

India Hicks on why she adopted a Bahamian teenager: Model and friend to the Royals tells emotional story for first time

[Daily Mail 5/7/12 by Sadie Whitelocks]

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