The next morning, our first in Galati, Lucci brought the usual platter of sliced sausage, cucumbers, tomatoes and radishes for breakfast. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t keep any of it down. This always made me feel so bad because I knew Lucci had gone out at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning to stand in lines for this precious food. Elena the Pediatrician came early and asked for all the medicinal supplies we had brought. There was a bad virus going around and many children were sick with high fevers and coughs. They had no supplies to help reduce the fevers, and the kids were not doing well, many were dying. We gave her all we had, which was a significant amount. We also turned all the other things over to her as well to distribute where and how she saw fit. Knowing these items were to be used as bribes for government officials disgusted me, and I just wanted it gone and out of sight. Val was later not too happy that we had not saved any of it to take back to Bucharest, but we didn’t know he wanted us to do that. This gave us a little more space to move around in our cramped little room.

Some of these items included: cigarettes - a shipping box full of cigarettes. Being non-smokers, we had no clue how many different kinds of cigarettes there are?!!! The preferred brand in Romania was "Menthol Cools", which we soon discovered was not a popular brand here in the United States, and had been very difficult to find before we left for Romania. Other things on the list were ball-point pens, and they were specific the pens had to be ball-point pens, disposable shaving razors, cases and cases of pediatric medication, both prescription and over the counter. Most of the prescription medications were antibiotics donated by Dr. Robert Treft and Dr. Corey Ericksen. The over the counter medication was mostly Advil, Tylenol, and Triaminic Cough Syrup.

The most important item on the agenda that day was to get in touch with Ron and have him re-do the “Intent To Adopt” form. The generic one we initially did for our packet was no longer acceptable, and we were required to have the actual full name of our adoptive child on it – “Errin Florina Johnson”. I was able to re-do mine and have it notarized there in Romania, but I had to get in touch with Ron to have him re-do his, which was no easy feat. These were the days prior to cell phones. In order to place a call outside of Romania, I had to call the Romanian operator, tell her the number I needed to call, and then hang up and wait for her to patch the call through to Ron in the United States. I also had to take into account the nine hour time difference. When the call was patched through, the phone in Romania would ring and I had to answer it. Then the Romanian operator would tell me the call was being connected. Each call took hours to get through, and time was of the essence. Elena told me Val had called her and requested this to be done urgently, that we would need it once we got back to Bucharest after completing the Romanian portion of the adoption in Galati. Without this document, we would not be able to get a VISA to bring Errin back home to the United States. Once the Romanian adoption was final, Errin would no longer be a Romanian citizen. Without a VISA to come back into the United States, she would be a child without a country and not allowed to stay in Romania. I was grateful to have to stay at the apartment in Galati this day to wait for Ron’s call, allowing me to get a little rest, and try to get my tummy to settle down. After many hours, the call finally came through and I was able to tell Ron exactly how the new document had to be worded. He typed it up immediately, took it to our friend who notarized it, then to Barnes Bank for the raised seal, then to the post office where he paid for it to be mailed via “Registered International Overnight Mail”. I prayed the document would get to the address in Bucharest, and then turned it over to the Lord. It felt good to be crossing things off the list.

Another thing weighing heavily on my mind was the fact that we did not have time to register at the U.S. Embassy upon arriving in Romania, which we had been told to do immediately upon our arrival. By the time our flight landed in Bucharest, the embassy was closed for the day. And the next morning we were on the train to Galati before the embassy opened. I mentioned this numerous times to Florine, and he just told me there was no time to do this and not to worry about it. What scared me the most was the fact that the U.S. Government had no idea we had actually arrived in the country. If anything were to go wrong, they would have no record of us even being there. Yet another thing I had to turn over to the Lord and have FAITH everything would turn out ok.

I was anxious to see Errin, and thought we would be able to get her as soon as we arrived in Galati. I had hopes this would happen the day after we went to the tribunal. I was wrong. And due to the nervousness of the secret police lurking about, we could not even visit her at the maternity hospital.

The first week was a lot of hurry up and wait. Val was still dealing with other adoption issues in the Northern part of the country, but we felt comfortable with Elena, Rodika, Nic, Lucci, Manole and their son Antoni.

Maternity hospitals were extremely crowded. Two women shared a bed, once again the size in-between that of one of our twin and full size mattresses here in the United States. Soiled sheets were turned over, and used on each side before being washed. Babies were not held or nurtured. They were placed in harsh metal cribs with no human interaction, as there were not enough nurses to care for everyone. Bottles had the tip of the nipples cut off, and were propped. They were fed twice a day. Whatever the babies could catch they ate, what they couldn’t, went all over them. I never did understand the waste of precious formula. Formula that was imported from Hungary and extremely expensive. Diapers consisted on a flannel type receiving blanket that went up to the top of their head in the back, then wrapped around their legs and pinned at the waist. There were no plastic pants to keep the bed sheets from getting soiled. Then they were swaddled tightly, sometimes even bound with rope. Many children suffered permanent internal organ damage from being swaddled so tightly. And baths simply did not happen at all. Not even after birth. Sanitation was a huge issue. The babies were placed in rooms with bright lights day and night making it difficult for them to sleep. Another thing I didn’t understand given the shortage of light bulbs in the country.

HIV/AIDS was rampant throughout the country, especially in newborn babies. Because birth moms had such poor nutrition, many babies were born small for gestational weight, and quickly became even more undernourished. With so many babies being turned over to the state run orphanages, they did not even have the benefit of natural mother’s milk. With the lack of proper education, medical professionals began doing blood transfusions to give these babies a boost. This is normally a good thing done properly, however, dirty syringes were used. Taking blood from an infected adult, and using the same syringe to inject the transfusion directly into the newborn baby, HIV/AIDS was prevalent. The United States required two blood tests prior to applying for a VISA to bring an international child into our country – especially from these third world countries. The tests had to be done two weeks apart, as there was a window where the first test could come back negative, when the child was actually positive for the disease. A second blood test insured the test results one way or the other. If the child tested positive, they were un-adoptable. This meant they would be sent to a horrific orphanage in the Carpathian Mountains to die, never to be seen or heard from again. So many things had to take place in the perfect sequence in order for an adoption to go through.

Even though it was May, Galati was cold and humid. Because the water and heat were controlled by the Romanian government, most people left their gas cooktops turned on all the time to help keep their apartments warmer. The problem with this, is that it makes it so they must leave their windows open all the time so as not to be asphyxiated. There were no screens on the windows, and the mosquitoes were fierce! You could hear them buzzing around you all night long, and each morning we discovered new bites on our arms and faces. We tried to kill as many as we could using a small spiral bound notebook I had taken to keep a daily journal with. These mosquitoes were well fed, and the marks they left were painful, large, red welts. I remember praying they didn’t carry any horrible diseases. Even their loud buzzing sounded mad and angry compared to the mosquitoes we have here at home. I felt more concerned about the mosquitoes than I did someone climbing through the window to rob us, which would have been quite easy to do, as we were on the ground level of the large cement apartment building.

Nic and Rodika would often come and in their broken English, ask “John Kennedy, we take a drive down Danube”. Contrary to us thinking this meant going for a ride in the car, it actually meant going for a walk on the walkway next to the Danube River. My dad’s name is John, but he has always gone by Jack. In Romania however, they called him “John Kennedy”. I tried to ask why they called him that, but our conversation abilities were limited. I did find it interesting how they obviously had great admiration for John F. Kennedy. I also wondered how much real news they were able to watch on television, and how much was carefully manipulated government propaganda. They didn’t even know how many U.S. Presidents we’d had since John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

We saw a diverse divide in the population that congregated by the Danube River, which was defiantly NOT blue. It was more the consistency and color of thick chocolate pudding. We saw many Roma descent people dressed in their brightly colored clothing, their sad broken down horses, pulling a sad broken down wagon. We saw one little crippled horse with its hooves curled back, limping along on its forelegs as it pulled a little wagon. I made the mistake of taking a picture. The Roma man who owned it chased after us demanding money for taking the picture. Nic did not back down to him, and stepped between the man and us. I’m not sure what they were saying to each other, but based on the tone of the yelling, it’s probably best that I didn’t understand any of it. Finally the man backed down, and we kept walking. Nic was still upset with the man and kept turning around to make sure he wasn’t following us. He had no patience for these people, who were brazen and came begging for money every time we went out. They were impossible to ignore, and from what I hear are talented pick pockets. I made sure I was always careful with my purse anytime we went out in public.

Nic would yell at them in Romanian, and then wave them off as he called them “dirty gypsies”. However when Sunday rolled around, He and Rodika asked if we would like to go to Church with them. We readily accepted and were excited to see another cultural difference to what we are used to here at home. As we walked to the ornate Roman Orthodox Church, Nic put some change into my hand. I looked at him with a question that asked what the money was for. He told me it was “for Gypsies”. I almost laughed out loud.

On weekdays he despised them, but on Sundays he gave them money as they stood in groups at the bottom of the church steps with their cups out begging for money. I also decided I really liked the way Nic and Rodika went to church. We went to three different ones. We would put the coins in the gypsies cups, go inside the church, light a candle, stand in the back for a short time, and then go to the next one. Church went by quickly each time we went!

Sometimes Lucci and Antoni would come with us on our “drives” along the Danube. We would stop at places along the river and watch what people were doing there. People were fishing with nets, often these were children. They cast the nets out into the water, and pulled them back in. I didn’t see any fish actually being caught. And by the looks of the young boys who were fishing, it didn’t seem like they caught enough to put much flesh on their boney little frames.

We walked miles and miles up and down the walkway next to the river, which was not an easy task for me. I was so sick, and had no desire to be outside with all the strange smells, with nowhere in sight to throw up. Thank goodness, that didn’t happen, but I came close on many occasions. I was desperate for some soda, preferably Coca-Cola to help ease my rumbling tummy. We expressed this to Nic and Rodika, using our best charades type communication. They seemed to understand what we wanted and on the same Sunday we went to church, we walked further than we ever had before. We finally stopped at a little shack across from the river. They were selling Pepsi in a bottle. We were so thrilled to buy a bottle and sit next to the river at a picnic table to drink it. As we sat drinking it, I looked across at my dad’s bottle as he took a big swig. I noticed about an inch of dirty sludge at the bottom of the bottle. Then I noticed cases of dirty bottles sitting behind the Pepsi shack. They were coming out and getting them, filling them up, and re-using them without washing them. My eyes began to water, my tummy began to wretch, and I thought I would lose it all. How I kept it down is beyond me. My dad could see that I was suddenly doing worse than normal and looked at me with a questioning look. Not wanting to hurt Nic and Rodika’s feelings, I discreetly pointed to the bottom of our bottles. Dad’s eyes got huge! We quickly set out bottles down, and when Nic and Rodika turned to look at the river, we quickly dumped the rest of the contents in a garbage can conveniently located right next to our table. I couldn’t think about it much because I knew I would lose the contents of my stomach in a very busy public place. I never asked to go to the Pepsi shack again. However, I did ask Elena if she knew where we could get some actual cans of Coca-Cola. She said, “Oh no, please tell me they did not take you to get Pepsi?!!!” The look on my face gave her the answer, and she apologized profusely. The next day she came back to the apartment with two six packs of real live genuine cans of Coca-Cola. She found them on the black-market for $5 a can and bought all they had – twelve lovely cans! I didn’t even care, I gladly paid up, and would have paid more. We placed them in the tiny fridge in the hallway of the apartment, and I rationed myself to one can per day. Normally I did not drink caffeine while I was pregnant. Prior to that I had been 100% obedient, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and I needed something to drink that I could actually keep down. These cans of Coca-Cola, and my pink wintergreen lozenge candies are the only things I was able to keep down longer than five to ten minutes the entire three weeks we were there.

The first week, I was sick, but still able to function. However, each day became harder and harder. I could tell our hosts were beginning to wonder what was wrong with me. It was not normal to be motion sick from the airplane for so long. I prayed and prayed that I would be able to get through the time there without having to tell anyone I was pregnant. I wasn’t showing yet, that anyone could tell anyway. I was so worried it would affect us being able to complete the adoption procedure if anyone knew.

I wanted so badly to feel better so that I could go out and see more of the country, but was too sick to do much of that. Another problem that surrounded us everywhere we went, was that everyone smoked! I wondered how they could spend money on cigarettes while their children were starving to death – literally. I am so allergic to cigarette smoke, it compounded how sick I was. And then to top it off, one night Manole stayed up all night long painting the entire inside of the apartment with the exception of our room. It was the strongest smelling paint I’ve ever smelled, and yet another thing I worried about for the unborn son I secretly carried within me. The windows were all open, but the smell was still so strong! I couldn’t help but wonder if it was lead-based paint. I prayed for our health and safety all throughout the days and nights, especially for my unborn son.

Each day I asked when we would be able to get Errin. I was anxious for her well-being, and hoped she was being properly cared for. We had Elena take disposable diapers, a blanket, clothing and formula along with money to the maternity hospital to care for her until we were allowed to have her with us. We found out later that she was only fed twice a day, the diapers we sent were not used on her, and the other things disappeared. Luckily I took enough things for Errin, that it was ok. I knew Val, Elena, Nic and Rodika were doing all they could to facilitate the date of the adoption, but I was anxious and wanted to have Errin with us. Finally, after a week’s time of waiting, Elena came and told us Val would bring the baby, her birth mother, and her birth grandmother the following day! I don’t think I slept at all that night. The day I had been praying for, waiting for, preparing for was almost dawning, and I KNEW it would be filled with LIGHT!!!

Be sure to check back as the story continues . . .

Love Ya, Les :)

Family

Chapter Seven : The First Week Felt Like An Eternity