August 16, 1990|SUSAN CHRISTIAN |
TIMES STAFF WRITER Carol Mardock's list of contacts grows, almost by the day. A new name at the U.S. Department of State. A name at the U.S. Embassy in Romania. A name at a Romanian church in Orange County. A name of another international adoption agency. A name of another adoption attorney.
But somehow the list is never long enough, and the contacts--thus far--never powerful enough.
On a hot August day, the Chino Hills housewife lounged by the pool at a friend's home, watching three of her five children splash about. She was half a world away from the still faceless, still elusive child she fervently wants to make her sixth.
Carol and Bob Mardock, a pastor at Brea-Olinda Friends Church, are among hundreds of American couples who long to adopt a Romanian orphan.
They have read the tragic stories, they have seen the heartbreaking news footage. Many have been trying to adopt for years--no easy feat, regardless of the child's nationality. And now their passion has been fired by additional incentive: They want to rescue one of Romania's forsaken children.
About 100,000 children and adolescents live in Romanian institutions that provide minimal care--physically, nutritionally and emotionally.
Their plight is largely due to the harsh 25-year regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. In an effort to increase the Romanian population, he heavily fined couples who produced fewer than five children. The dictator, executed after last December's revolution, also made birth control virtually unavailable.
As a result, many people in the impoverished country--where even such basic necessities as food staples and soap are scarce--have relinquished unaffordable children to the state's care.
Although French citizens have been adopting Romanian children for years, it wasn't until Ceausescu's fall that Americans en masse learned of the myriad orphans.
"Since January, we have received as many as 400 calls a week regarding Romanian orphans," said State Department spokesman Charles S. Smith.
But, despite the multitude of children who need parents--and the multitude of Americans clamoring to fill that role for them--adoption is not so simple as jetting to Romania and plucking a child from his bleak surroundings.
On June 11, the new Romanian government temporarily froze all international adoptions to reorganize the procedure. The freeze recently was lifted, but success stories remain few and far between. Only about 35 American families have managed to adopt Romanian children since the revolution, Smith said.
"In a country run by a Communist government for so many years, of course there is a lot of red tape," said Downey lawyer Alexandru Cristea, a native of Romania who has been providing adoption information from the International Institute of Los Angeles over the last few months. While the revised law--which transfers approval of adoptions from the presidential office to district courts--eventually could prove more expedient, Smith warned that its benefits may be slow in coming.
"It will do nothing to sweep out the backlog of adoption requests," he said. "We are waiting for the law to become a reality before we encourage people to run over to Romania and pursue an adoption."
But Carol Mardock will not be deterred.
"You'd think that the Romanian government would welcome all these people who want to give their orphans homes," she said.
She and her husband already have adopted one child, 5-year-old Marcie, born in Korea. They were inspired to adopt again by a "20/20" news program last April that featured a Bucharest orphanage.
ABC received more than 15,000 letters and telephone calls in response to the broadcast. "I was overwhelmed by the number of people desperate to adopt," said Janice Tomlin, who produced the segment.
The show focused on 4-year-old Jessica Scott--one of the lucky few to make it out of a cold orphanage and into a warm family.
Jessica does not seem like a child who has spent the bulk of her short life deprived of love and care. The gregarious brunette skips cheerfully about her elegant Camarillo home as if this is all she has ever known: frilly clothes, "Little Mermaid" on video, a sunny back yard, pancakes for breakfast and adoring parents.
But only seven months ago, she was trapped in the cruel maze of Ceausescu's government. Her parents, Ilona and Toby Scott, have been calling her their own since they fell in love with the unresponsive but otherwise healthy 9-month-old baby at a Romanian orphanage.
It took three years and literally thousands of letters--to every U.S. and Romanian official they could imagine--before the Scotts pried their daughter from the jowls of the bureaucracy.
