Licas Turn

I could write a book on Licas (Leeka) adoption! So just to warn you this will be a long post. The photos are from her graduation scrapbook that I made for her so that is why you can see some stickers and stuff on the one photo. The first photo was taken only after her being here a little over a month. You can see how scared she is and unsure of life. But just look at the joy in her eyes in her graduation picture! In 1990 after being married only 5 years we were talking about having kids. We were going to have them the old fashioned way until our lives changed after watching a TV show. They were having an episode on 20/20 about Romanian orphans. I wouldn't let myself watch it after seeing some of the previews for it. 2 weeks later on our local nightly news WCCO, they were advertising a week long series on The Iron Crib, Romanian Orphans. This time I watched with Ken every single night for a week. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! It was awful, gut wrenching and just plain sad. I found myself waiting during the day for the series to come on to see how this could actually be happening in the world. I was young and naive! During our time watching it and calling everyone I knew to watch it, I told Ken we had to do something. Now adoption was never talked about in my family growing up. I really didn't know anyone adopted nor did Ken. So when I said we should do something, Ken responded with we could send some money or something. I said no, the money might not get there. I told him we should really just go get one of those kids. Without thinking, he said simply replied OK! You got to love a husband like that!!!! Now here comes the fun part! I knew which kid I wanted. The one where the nurse was shoving food into the mouth of this poor little child. So not knowing anything about adoptions or the rules of the country, we took a photo of this child off the TV, wrote down what orphanage and city the reporter said they were at, got a home study in record time and Ken flew to Romania the end of April 1991 to find OUR child! He found a interpreter, Radu, and traveled 3 1/2 hours to the city and orphanage that we had written down. He walked in the orphanage and showed them the picture. They told him that this child was back home with her parents. So Ken got the address and went to the house to see if it was OUR child. It was not, but that did not stop the parents to try to persuade us to adopt their child. Nope, wasn't going to happen. Ken went back to the orphanage and told them that this was not the child in the picture and asked if they would look again. They called the workers, aids, nurses, whatever you want to call them over to take a look and sure enough one of them said yes that is Vasilica. Ken followed her to the tiny room of iron cribs and saw OUR child, sleeping just waiting for us. We thought when we first saw her on TV that she was a 2yr old little boy. But she was a 4yr old little girl, OUR girl! Ken talked with her through Radu and asked her if she wanted to fly over the big water to come live with us. Things were sure allot different back then! Ken then had to drive back to Bucharest to start the paperwork. I wont even try to tell you the nightmare of the next 3 months while Ken was there. But what I will tell you is we made some of our best friends there who we now refer to as family! Without the help of these people, Lica would not be home! Neither would Roxana but its not her turn yet so I cant say anything about her on this post. Lica was very much delayed due to laying in a crib for almost 5 years! And I mean laying in a crib! That's all these children did. No toys, no touch, no love, no nothing! She has come so far in her life and we are so PROUD of her! It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears but was soooooo worth it! There is not another person like our Lica. She is the kindest, sweetest, most honest person I have ever met in my life. I have learned so much from her and I'm glad that God let me be her mother!