The Journey Home

It was a long shot, to be sure. Our valiant attempt to adopt David and be back home in 10 days would’ve happened, had it not been for one form without my signature. For 8 months we worked feverishly with our Romanian liaison to set up our court hearing and ensure all of our paperwork would be efficiently expedited so the process could be completed in record time.

Bruce hit the ground running as soon as he arrived in Bucharest, and it looked like it would happen,
until he was abruptly detoured by a technicality the day before they were to fly home. Somehow among the mound of paperwork we completed, checked, and re-checked, there was one form that required my signature (contrary to repeated assurances from the Immigration and Naturalization Agency that Bruce could sign as my power of attorney). 

Without it, David could not leave the country, even though by that time he’d been legally adopted.
Fax machines were not yet available in Romania in 1990, and because of the approaching Memorial Day holiday, it was faster for Bruce to travel home, retrieve my signature, and fly back to submit the paperwork.
Otherwise, he would’ve had to remain in the country for 3 weeks, a luxury he didn’t have as a self-employed
business owner. Complicating it even more was the fact that he had to leave David behind in the interim. 
But as God always did, he provided for us a kind, young pastoral couple who agreed to keep David until he returned.
 
Bruce’s trip back to Romania the following week was a whirlwind of bureaucratic red tape, laboriously slow waiting lines, and days navigating unfamiliar streets in an unfamiliar city with an unfamiliar language,
all with an oppositional 4 year old in tow. Time after time he saw God open doors that should’ve remained closed, like with the embassy officer who appropriately questioned the legitimacy of David’s birth certificate.
It documented that David’s birth father had died two years before he was even born. 

When Bruce could offer no reasonable explanation, but that it had been accepted at the adoption hearing, the officer shook her head in righteous indignation and stamped the visa. The day before their scheduled flight home, Bruce discovered an additional transit visa was also required for their stopover in Germany.
This added to his day’s already overloaded itinerary, which included having documents translated and hand-copied, delivering them downtown to the US Embassy, and then heading back to the German embassy to get the visa, all by 3:00 pm.  In the end, it proved to be too much to get done in too little time, and another two days were added before they were on their way home.  

I didn’t vacuum my house for the entire time Bruce was gone. We'd been told that there were only 26 phone lines coming out of the entire country at the time, so communication was limited and sporadic.  Any noise that masked the sound of our phone ringing was banned, as I couldn’t risk missing a call that could come from him at any time.

We kept busy back home, preparing the house and our hearts for the new normal that would be ours in just a few days. The van was loaded and we were ready to go when Bruce called from Frankfort---they were on the last leg of their journey home, and we’d meet them at JFK in a few hours. Finally.

 

It's a strangely surreal experience meeting your child for the very first time.

For as much as we anticipated it, our initial encounter was relatively subdued. I’d romanticized the moment in my mind many times, eager to embrace David and love on him, but Bruce had cautioned me that he probably wouldn’t be receptive to it, so I curbed my maternal instincts and moved tentatively toward him. The older four observed their newest sibling in curious wonder, engaging him more like a newly acquired pet, wanting to touch and play, but being measured in approaching him.

At four years of age, he was small, weighing only 19 lbs. with skinny bird legs, chubby cheeks, and a distended stomach. He clung tightly to Bruce, only letting go after he spotted the American flag and Mylar balloons we’d brought along for him. His body emitted a combination of the garlic flavored crackers he ate on the flight and the stench of a messy diaper that badly needed attention. Bruce was hesitant to change it on board because it was an odor that lingered long after changing, and he figured it was better just to keep it ‘contained’ while confined inside the aircraft's cabin.

Even though David had been given a clean bill of health by the medical staff in Romania, it quickly became apparent that was not the case.

Within a week of his arrival we had several pressing medical issues to resolve. His body odor was caused by 5 different intestinal parasites, so we immediately began an aggressive treatment to clean out his intestinal tract and boost his malnourished frame. To prevent the others from contracting it, I insisted that I'd be the only one changing his diapers for awhile, and not surprisingly, no one objected to that ruling. He was also diagnosed with acute anemia, which required us to orally administer iron (in liquid form) to him twice every day.  

This was a dreaded routine that involved every last family member. Bruce would hold David while each of his siblings secured a limb so I could safely express the iron-filled syringe into his mouth while he fought like a trapped animal trying to escape. It was a task that usually ended quite literally with blood, sweat and tears. With David’s terrified facial expression and tightly clenched mouth, sweat running down the sides of my face, and four sets of little hands firmly gripping thrashing arms and legs---we were all exhausted after each encounter and I was frustrated that a language barrier kept me from helping
David understand this was an act of love, not abuse.

Much of what was done during those first days was simply an exercise in survival mode. What did we need to do to keep him alive and safe for that day? And how did we stay sane trying? The buck ultimately stopped with me, but there were many other players in the game. David probably still doesn’t realize the sacrifices his siblings made for him throughout the years, particularly those early days when my time and energy normally reserved for them was redirected toward addressing his immediate needs.

They were willing partners however, and after the first two weeks of doting on him and extending grace,
he was just one of them, with the rules applying equally all around the table. David was not so much
a novelty any longer, but a brother, and if he was going to be part of our family, he was going to have to take the bad with the good.

Of course our expectations for him were way too high initially. We see that now.

Love alone does not remove all the emotional baggage a wounded child brings along with him.  Because of an extremely limited history on David, we could only draw our own conclusions about what his life was like during those first four years, and it didn’t look pretty. He came to us without any base language or capability to communicate other than his primal scream and pointing fingers. He routinely recoiled in fear whenever an
adult would innocently reach for him, and he often seemed to be in a fantasy world all his own. His play was rarely interactive with his siblings at first, as much of his days were spent more in a protective, parallel realm he could control.

His fingers and toes provided his greatest entertainment, as they had been his only means of activity when he was confined to a crib all day. For the first month or so, he slept with his bedroom light on, and could often be found rocking back and forth in bed, with the better part of his fist in his mouth. His thumb-sucking had created health and speech issues for him, but it was his way of self-soothing, and weaning him from it was going to be a slow and steady process.

He could express pleasure, but more often than not, his hollow countenance reflected a deep void behind his dark eyes. Often I would just look at him and wonder what he carried behind that wall of emptiness.
His fears were not the ‘normal’ ones children routinely demonstrate. He had no fear of strangers, for example, so we were diligent to keep a close eye on him whenever in a public setting.

He couldn’t distinguish a healthy fear from an irrational one, like the time I had a knock at my kitchen door from a passing motorist who found him leisurely playing with his matchbox cars in the middle of our street.
He didn’t flinch when our larger than life collie greeted him with warm, wet licks to the face the first day we brought him home. He wasn’t the least bit wary of the live bumble bees he’d somehow collected in an empty medicine container. Even predicted negative outcomes, like a bee sting, didn’t deter him. Cause and effect just didn’t compute in his underdeveloped brain.

He was fascinated with fire, and he seemed to delight when someone or something else was met with
unexpected misfortune. His temper tantrums were unlike any I’d ever witnessed. I prayed for wisdom like never before, scared and questioning what we’d gotten ourselves into. Had we made a mistake? Can we even help this little guy find some kind of redemption from his past? Would this adversely affect our other four children?

Knowing God had been faithful to bring David to us in the first place, I trusted He would provide what we needed, no matter how incompetent I felt or how hopeless it appeared. But I also knew Bruce was right. This was indeed going to take time.

And so we began with what we could  immediately change. His physical maladies could be treated with a series of immunizations, drug therapy, and regular check-ups. I began making three trips a week into the
Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic for intensive speech therapy, and then daily reviewing with him at home, using handmade flash cards picturing the basics, like ‘What is a mom?’ ‘What is a dad?’. Often folks would comment that we were starting with a blank slate, but in reality it wasn’t true. David may not have had much comprehension, but he had a boatload of emotional baggage that he carried. 

So in addition to the benign ‘What is a dog?’ 'What is a cat?' flashcards, we also had the less settling questions, like ‘What is pain?’  'What is anger?'. We were assured that the source of his anger was his inability to articulate his thoughts. Once he knew how to express himself, his rage would gradually go away.
At least in concept that sounded reasonable. 

But as David grew and learned to voice his emotions, we were not fully prepared for what would come out.

To be continued….