November 11 marks The Day of Prayer for Orphans. It was held under the slogan “Ukraine has 30,000 Christian communities and 30,000 orphans. It is time to change the stats.” On the eve of the holiday The Day met with a couple who has adopted a boy and a girl from children’s home several years ago.
Nadia and Viktor ROZBYTSKY are Roman Catholics, parishioners of the Saint Mary Church, located on the Left Bank in Kyiv. He works in the sphere of construction. She takes care of the children. Curiously enough, seven-year-old Ivanko very much resembles Viktor and four-year-old Liza look like Nadia, just as bright. Strange are the deeds of the Lord indeed.
Nadia and Viktor, what made you take this courageous step, to adopt two kids from an orphanage? Genetics discourages many childless couples from adoption, as it may “shoot” at some point of time in the future.
Nadia: “This question worried me, too. Then I went to see a priest and heard, ‘If we depended only on genetics, people would have died out.’ In other words, God is above everything.”
Who was the first to broach this topic?
N.: “Viktor had wanted us to adopt children for a long while, but he did not dare to tell me this.”
Viktor: “You kept telling for a longer while that you were not ready.”
N.: “I hoped to give birth to children of my own. And Vitia kept waiting. But one day we got a call, we were asked whether we wanted to adopt a girl. However, that girl did have a mother (she was traveling around the world) and a grandmother who was raising her. Other people asked about the same thing later. I started thinking about this. I started to pray: ‘God, if You want us to adopt a child, put this desire into my heart.’ And one day, as soon as I woke up, I started to find out the address, the phone numbers, and reception hours of the Guardians Council in our district. When I found everything out, I called my husband and told him about everything.”
I have heard many couples saying that the state, although unable to provide an appropriate care of orphans (many people publish requests on Facebook to give toys, warm clothes to one or another children homes), still does not help to adopt children. To adopt healthy kids, you need to have connections in Guardians Councils or elsewhere in state bodies. But it often becomes problematic to adopt even diseased children. Have you faced such difficulties?
V.: “Healthy kids are adopted already in maternity houses (I mean babies who have been refused). There is a queue for such children. We have been in such a queue. However, we had already seen Ivanko by the time they phoned to tell us we might adopt a boy.
“After filing the documents (the red tape lasts for about a year), we were directed to the children’s home Berizka in Kyiv’s Desniansky District. Its director told us right away, ‘There are no little healthy children. They all are either grown-up or diseased, or gravely diseased.’ And he added, ‘Okay then. Come tomorrow. Our lawyer will come. Probably, he will recommend someone.’ Was it a hint of bribery? I don’t know. Next day, we were shown three children. Two days after that, they showed us only two children. Ivanko was one of them. Both kids were diseased. Vania had hepatitis C and HIV.”
Does Vania have HIV?
V.: “Yes. The woman who gave birth to him was HIV-positive. He was on the books till the age of three, but then he was taken off the books, because the diagnosis was not verified. The antibodies may stay or disappear. We believe that God cured him from HIV and hepatitis C.”
N.: “Liza was HIV-positive, too. She also comes from Berizka, where children with nervous system diseases (like Down syndrome) are brought, or those who were born by HIV-positive mothers, children with HIV/AIDS. Incidentally, Vania’s mom left him at the maternity house, and the police took Liza away from a Gypsy at Kyiv’s Darnytsia Railway Station.”
You must have a really kind heart and strong faith to adopt such children.
V.: “Adopting Ivanko was not an immediate decision despite the fact that before him we had been unable to adopt any child, though we were sending applications all over Ukraine. We were scared. When they showed Vania to us for the first time (he was 1.4 months old), we got terrified: his face was covered with sniffles, his tongue was blue and hanging out. Later we found out that by showing his tongue, the boy copied children with Down syndrome, along with whom he was growing up. And the color of his tongue was the alkaline reaction of onions and honey. The kid was treated with them to avoid injecting antibiotics – there were no other medicines. Incidentally, when our son grew up a bit, we several times bought all kind of things to this children’s home [on its website http://efoto.io.ua/s30045/ kievskiy_miskiy_budinok_ ditini_berizka you can read about the one-time and regular needs of Berizka’s fosterlings. – Ed.].”
N.: “We were asking God whether Vania is the child He prepared for us. Then we came up with an idea that for several generations in my husband’s families Ivan goes after Viktor, one after another. Viktor’s patronymic is Ivanovych, and his father’s name is Ivan Viktorovych. I was thinking, ‘Ivanko will continue this tradition if we adopt him. Then I once opened the Bible and immediately saw the name John. God always speaks to a person the language s/he understands.’”
Psychologists say adaptation of orphans to life in a new family is mostly a painful process, no matter how much new parents try to surround them with love. Acquired fears, experienced stresses, and pain have their effect for a while. What was the situation in your family?
N.: “It was a shock for us. Ivan hardly slept for six months. He was yelling all the time. Apparently, he had some psychic disorders. He was holding my or husband’s hands practically for all night long. He could not stand being left alone in daytime. Imagine, he did not speak till the age of three years and three months. He said only the words ‘dad’ and ‘mom’ and exclaimed ‘oh!’, ‘ah!’, and ‘uh!’ But as soon as Ivan began to talk, he was talking all the time. As our psychologists explained, the reason was that he did not have an inner world of his own.
“As far as I remember, it was much easier with Liza. However, at the age of eight months (that was when we saw her for the first time) she did not stretch her legs, only bent them under herself. My mother raised alarm, saying we were adopting an invalid. ‘The girl will walk,’ I reassured her, ‘It’s just nobody has taken care of her.’ Incidentally, the employees of the children’s home were trying to talk us out of adopting Liza, they warned she would not walk. But the employees of the Child Center, mostly Protestants, vice versa, encouraged us to take the child. Namely this kind of structures defends the rights of parents. Being aware that adoption of a healthy child or a child with not grave diagnosis takes place owing to backstairs influence, they try to control the appearance of a new baby in children’s homes and follow his/her further life. So, they have a complete data base.”
Knowing the behind of scenes of adoption process, as well as the peculiarities of bringing up these unloved, estranged kids, would you recommend other childless couples to take this step?
N.: “Of course. Be it not for my age, I would have adopted one more kid (laughing).” [Nadia is 44. – Ed.]
Your strong faith helped you to take the diseased kids. What should people who lack this faith do?
V.: “Those who do not have faith will never adopt children with such diagnoses. Incidentally, when we went to see Liza, a couple of Protestants came to see another girl, diseased as well. They adopted her and two months ago they gave birth to a son. It often happens so, when you take care of someone else’s child, God gives you a child of your own.”
Do children know that you are not their biological parents?
N.: “They know, but they don’t understand. They are too young. It even worries me how they will perceive the truth about themselves when they grow up and understand. I already send my prayers to God, entrusting this situation to Him.”
V.: “This is a result of love and prayer.”
