For a year we feared our twins had HIV
In this haunting interview, Olympian Tessa Sanderson reveals that the babies she adopted at 56 were born to a drug addict mother . . .
‘I was crying when they finally got the all-clear’ ‘Dens kissed them and said, you’re our children now’
CASSIUS is introducing me to Olympic gold medal-winner Tessa Sanderson. ‘This is my mummy,’ the three-year-old says proudly.
‘This is my daddy.’ He launches himself at judo champion Densign White, who is holding Cassius’s twin, Ruby Mae. ‘And this is my sister. We are a family.’
Tessa flashes the sort of smile that could melt icebergs. As well she might.
On April 16, 2014, after two failed IVF treatments and a frustrated effort to adopt a six-year-old girl, Tessa, now 60, finally realised her dream of becoming a mother when she and Densign, 54, officially adopted the twins.
Last month, the former javelin- thrower spoke openly for the first time about her young family, describing Cassius and Ruby Mae — whom they have been looking after since they were four months old — as her ‘world’ and insisting that age was no barrier to being a good mother.
Those of us familiar with the sheer exhaustion of raising young children disagreed. What on earth was she thinking, taking on two babies at an age when most right-minded folk are planning their retirement?
‘I don’t think the age we are makes any difference whatsoever,’ says Tessa, who looks two decades younger in the flesh.
‘Of course we get tired but we have kept ourselves fit and healthy. We are not people who sit around and do nothing — and our kids are the same.’
Indeed, after this interview Tessa and Densign are taking the twins for their first swimming lesson. The children exercise regularly, eat healthily and are, without doubt, deeply loved. Fizzy drinks are banned, reading is encouraged and screen time is strictly monitored.
In fact, you would be hard pushed to meet two more engaging three- year- olds. Cassius’s vocabulary is well beyond that of the average pre- school child and he can count up to 31, while Ruby Mae captivates with her ‘pleases’, ‘thank yous’ and the ease with which she dishes out cuddles.
‘Had we felt, once we knew what we had to go through, that we wouldn’t be able to do it, we’d have said, “This is honestly going to be too much”,’ says Tessa.
‘We’re giving them love and keeping them safe, which, at the time we had them, was the most important thing.’
Which is when she drops her bombshell: Cassius and Ruby Mae were born eight weeks prematurely to an HIV-positive mother who was a drug user. Little is known of their biological parents, although one is believed to be of Irish descent and the other is mixed-race.
Far from enjoying the sort of charmed start in life normally synonymous with celebrity parenthood, these poor little mites were so desperately underweight — at four months they each weighed under 4lb — and so poorly with severe chest infections, it’s a miracle they are here at all.
Indeed, for a hellish nine months Tessa and Densign did not even know whether the twins were infected with the HIV virus themselves. Yet they chose to adopt them nonetheless.
‘They had their first HIV test before they came to us, which was negative, but you can’t be sure the virus isn’t there somewhere in the body,’ says Tessa, speaking about their sad beginnings for the first time. ‘So periodically they had to keep going back for blood tests.
‘I used to get so tearful. They cried so much when the needle went in. They also both had chest infections and breathing difficulties. They needed four or five different medications a day.
‘I used to keep going into their room when they were sleeping and putting my face next to them in the cot, just to make sure they were still breathing.
‘We’d had them for nine months when they had their last HIV test, just before their first birthday on September 7. I was crying when they were finally given the all-clear.
‘ The paediatrician who had delivered them took us into a room. I’ll never forget his words. He said: “These children have been blessed to have you as parents. They have come on so well.” Then he told us their bloods were absolutely clear.
‘You think about how you felt winning a gold medal, but this was so much more than that. To hear our kids were clear, it’s like: “The whole world is fine. Let’s get out there now. Hey world, we’ve won.” ’
Again she flashes that smile. Do they expect any long-term health problems?
Densign strokes Ruby Mae’s hair as she sits in his lap. ‘The doctor said they might not be very tall and may have some problems with their speech,’ he says.
‘Ruby Mae has a little trouble with one or two letters, particularly pronouncing ‘f’ properly, but if we tell her how to put her teeth onto her bottom lip she does it. And Cassius is a bit small.’
Tessa interrupts: ‘People say he’s little, but he’ll tell you himself: “I’m a big boy.” And, I’ll tell you what, he’s strong as hell.
‘When I used to think I’d never have children, it felt like a piece of me was missing. The emotional pain was very, very hard. I’d never have thought I’d be this happy now, but these children have filled that hole.’
Tessa was 38 years old and in a long- term relationship with a former partner when she first embarked on IVF.
‘I’d always wanted children so much,’ she says. ‘I have a big family and when I wasn’t falling pregnant, I thought: “Am I going to be the only one without children?” The doctors told me plainly that I wasn’t producing enough eggs.’
When the first IVF attempt failed, she started on a second course at the age of 40.
‘I was driving round the North Circular when the clinic rang,’ she says. ‘They said: “Sorry Tessa but it hasn’t worked.”
‘I pulled into a bus stop, took a breath and started to cry. It was such a horrible feeling. I kept thinking: “Oh God, what do you do now you’ve tried everything?”
‘For weeks — months — I couldn’t think of anything else. I was very, very sad. Depressed.’
But Tessa is not the sort of woman to wallow in self-pity. Eventually she pulled herself together and started to concentrate on work, being appointed OBE in 1998 for her charity efforts and CBE in 2004 for her services to Sport England.
She established her own charity sports academy, the Tessa Sanderson Foundation and Academy, to support young athletes, the year before her wedding to Densign, a former Olympic judo athlete, in June 2010. They had met when Tessa was 51.
‘I discussed adoption with him the first night we went out,’ she says. Densign, a father of two grown-up sons who has worked for foster agencies training prospective foster parents, supported her entirely.
‘You see so many sad situations — quite desperate ones as well — it makes you want to cry at times,’ he says. ‘To be able to make a difference to even one of them is a wonderful thing. We felt we had so much to offer a child.’
They began the lengthy process of being accepted as adoptive parents within months of marrying.
‘The time was right for us,’ says Tessa. ‘ We had a good home, our careers were set out, we were financially sorted and we knew we could offer the love we felt for each other to one of those desperate kids out there.’
Initially, Tessa and Densign approached Barnardo’s. After attending a six- week intensive training course, they were approved by a panel of experts and offered the opportunity of adopting a six-yearold girl.
‘We saw pictures of her. She was mixed- race, living with a white family. The social worker said she had to be with a black family. I don’t believe in that kind of political correctness. That’s when Barnardo’s said if she came to us, one of us would have to take at least a year off work and stay at home to allow her to settle.
‘We said: “We can’t do that.” Who can afford to take a whole year off? We had to earn a living to support the child. We explained that we were self-employed, so we could work the hours we wished, and that we would be here for her when she wasn’t at school, but the social worker kept pushing and pushing it. When we said we had to work, they said it won’t happen.’
Tessa was devastated. ‘I started crying,’ she says. ‘We’d been through all of this right to the end, only to be told we weren’t going to have that child. I thought: “This is not the end of the line.” ’
The couple approached the Greater London Fostering Agency, where they repeated the rigorous training and checks.
‘We were approved by a panel and began waiting for the call,’ says Densign. ‘The profile we’d given was for a girl who was ideally five or six but no older than 11.
‘We didn’t want teenagers. We
wanted a younger child, so we could work with them and mould them. We got a few calls but it was always the wrong child — a 15-yearold who had absconded.’
In fact, Tessa and Densign had pretty much given up hope of ever becoming foster parents when the call came about the twins on January 24, 2013.
‘The social worker said there was a possibility of fostering two children but that they weren’t very well,’ says Tessa.
‘She explained that they were eight weeks premature and there were lots of health and medical things we’d have to go through. It wasn’t until we went to pick them up four days later that we realised how poorly they were.’ It made no difference.
‘ I remember it was snowing outside so it was like a winter’s dream,’ says Tessa, of that freezing January morning.
‘My heart melted the moment I saw them. The bond was automatic. They were four months old but so small and wrapped in their little blankets.
‘Dens took Cassius — he was so tiny, he fitted on his forearm — and I had Ruby Mae. We looked at each other and that’s when I felt: “Oh God. This is fantastic.” It’s a lovely feeling. Your heart races. I didn’t want to put her down.’
When they eventually returned with the twins to their London home, their large, loving family were there to meet them.
Today, photographs from this special day and the following three years are plastered over walls throughout the house. ‘There’s no moment I can single out as special in that first year,’ she says. ‘They were all special — watching them put on weight and learn to walk. Seeing their little characters develop. We loved them from the word go.’
But, much as they doted on the twins, Tessa and Densign had yet to learn whether they would be allowed to adopt Cassius and Ruby Mae.
The process lasted more than a year, as social workers and health visitors monitored the babies’ progress. Their biological parents were also offered the opportunity to care for the twins, but neither of them turned up to the meeting.
On April 16, 2014, Tessa and Densign finally attended the adoption hearing.
‘Coming face to face with that final panel was my biggest moment of nervousness,’ says Tessa.
‘We were Mummy and Daddy by that stage. The way I see Dens with them reading a story at night, the way we are as a family, the way we eat together — I’d stopped even thinking they weren’t our biological kids.
‘They were our children, and if the panel had said no I don’t think I’d ever have recovered.’ After facing the panel at Haringey Town Hall, Tessa and Densign sat in an adjoining room as the 15 members reached a decision.
‘ Everything’s going through your mind,’ says Tessa. ‘ Then, after about 15 minutes, an assistant came in. She was smiling and said: “You’re now fully adoptive parents.” ‘We were both beaming.’ She beams again now, remembering that moment.
‘When we got home the kids came running to the front door. Most of our family were waiting for us. We were just hugging each other and laughing.
‘I remember Dens picking up the kids, kissing them and saying: “You’re our children now.” It was so wonderful to think, it’s all behind us. This is family going forward.’
The children were still too young to understand the signifigance of those words. Both Tessa and Densign plan to sit down with them in the next six months or so to fully explain.
With which, Cassius and Ruby Mae hurtle through the sittingroom door. ‘Dens, can I take a photo?’ asks Cassius, holding a mobile phone. ‘Dens?’
‘He’s decided I’m his best friend so he’s just started calling me that,’ Densign laughs.
‘And Mummy’s my best friend and Ruby Mae,’ the wondrously happy little boy insists. Tessa glows with pleasure. ‘When I won my Olympic gold medal, that was amazing. It was a unique sporting achievement,’ she says. ‘But this is bigger. It is our lives.’
‘They were so small. My heart melted’