Whenever we propose an interview with "Alawa women", it is because some ray of that beauty that a life gives off has crossed and captivated us. With Rosa that happened to us from a distance, and when we got closer, that force was transformed into an embrace of hospitality and welcome so warm that we left her house refreshed and "healed inside".
Here we present a testimony of courage, bravery, generosity, but above all a testimony of faith. The faith of a woman who allowed herself to be reached by a love capable of “making all things new”.
Hello Rosa, thank you for your generous welcome here in your living room. As a brief presentation we could say that you are a physics teacher and teacher at a school arranged in Madrid, that you are married to Ubaldo, that you are the mother of two children: Dimitri and Marina and Miguel's grandmother.
We are sure that you have many interesting facets in your life, but today we have come closer to you attracted by one: motherhood.
In January 2000, you could say that a new stage in your life began, but another of many events ended. And it is that, specifically on January 20, 2000, you adopted your two children, Dimitri and Marina. How was that journey? How did you get there?
Rosa - Well, we, my husband and I, we started dating very young. I was 16, Ubaldo was 17, and we dated for nine years until we got married. When we get married, the truth is, what is typical of many couples who want to enjoy marriage, thinking that there would be time to have children. But it is true that I had a conscience of wanting to be a mother forever. And then the moment came when we already considered having children. At that moment we began to realize that they were not coming and there were difficulties.
I, a scientist, thought that science had to provide a solution. We did tests and they told us about the option of “in vitro” fertilization and we bet on that path. Now that I'm a believer, I understand why Mother Church wanted to protect me from that. It was a depersonalized, hard path, both emotionally and psychologically and physically. When I got pregnant with the treatment, after two months I lost the baby.
By then, we had already raised the issue of adoption, and that was the key point to say "let's adopt." We decided that, since our children were going to have a past, the most logical thing was that we could agree in affection for that past. At that time we had many friends with Russia and that is why we chose Russia.
It was important for us not to have only one child and that they were siblings, so we made an application for biological siblings. Because of our age - because that is very regulated - they told us that we were going to have babies from zero to four years old, which for me was great because all mothers want tiny babies. It took almost two years with the paperwork. As my husband is a military man and had a mission in Bosnia, all the fuss of paperwork and stoppages and everything, I had to live it a little alone. The thing is that, when they called us to go there, they told us that we had been granted two brothers.
But at that time, the Russians who have a proud character of wanting their children to stay there in their country, had said that they were the ones who decided what parents to give them and that this was not decided here in Spain but in Russia. So we had to travel without knowing very well which children had corresponded to us, but we thought between zero and maybe not four, but five or six years. We were always thinking of young children. The thing is that when we got there to Moscow, they tell us that our children were four and six years old. Then on the train to the city where the orphanage where the children were, they tell us that they were six and eight years old, and when we arrived in that city, they told us that our children were six and ten years old. Of course, it's not the same as in 24 hours you go from raising two babies to two children, six and ten years old. It's very complicated. We had many doubts. We did not want to meet the children until it was clear to us if we could handle that situation.
I imagine that this trip will have been an internal trip too.
Rosa - Yes, indeed. Because on the one hand there is all the illusion and emotion, and on the other hand there is the issue of not knowing very well where you are getting into.
So when we got to Moscow what we did was say, "well, let's first see if we are ready for this, before we take the plunge." And we called our families, and they supported us. They did not know how to say yes or no, but they told us to count on their support and that made us say yes.
We met Marina, who was at the orphanage, and looked like a little princess in her pink dress. But Dimitri was out, because he had been sent to a kind of healing area for health problems in his bronchi. They went after him on a plane and brought him. I remember perfectly that it was early morning, total night, with an impressive cold of Russian November, and he left the train with an impressive illusion face, it was a very, very emotional encounter. We didn't understand each other, of course.
The enthusiasm of the children who were there to have parents was also impressive, as the harsh reality they were in. You stay with the joy of the encounters you have with them on those days and also with the sad face of all the children who stay there, come on, you would bring them all.
I met Russia as a young man on the university study tour, it was the Soviet Union in all its glory. But the following two years, we traveled with my husband and my mother-in-law, who a little bit of the whole Russian subject comes from her because she spoke Russian, and we went to the house of the friends that I had made on the study trip, to live in their houses with them and such. In those two years, they were already experiencing Perestroika and what supposes the fall of a regime. The situation in the country was really tough. People without food, department stores without items for sale, a terrible crisis. Therefore, I often spoke to my children about the reality of their biological parents in the Soviet Union with that crisis that had occurred, which had been very difficult, and it was a very hard reality. Having known and transmitted it helped us as a family.
They were just coming from a situation of neglect, right?
A- Yes, his biological parents experienced the fall of a regime, that period of the "Perestoika" was one of great crisis in the Soviet Union. It was an attempt to change the regime and it did not go well. And for humble people it was even worse. The alcohol problem in the Nordic countries is very strong, her parents were alcoholics. They were from a very humble family, alcoholism and the great crisis that the country was going through was a very big cocktail, a Molotov cocktail. We were not aware of everything our children had experienced. And we were not until Dimitri began to count us almost 20 years old. They were telling us things, but loose things. A while ago, Dimitri started writing a book about his experience - he still has it unfinished, although it is practically finished -, he let me read it and well, the emotion of not having known that reality by the time they came was a hard blow to me. The subject of the sufferings they have gone through is not healed like this, in fact, I do not know when it will be healed. Every time they start a relationship, it comes back and it's very hard.
Then you returned to Spain to finish the adoption process before they could come.
A- Yes, two months passed, poor Dimitri - because Marina was not so aware - suffered a lot. We had told Dimitri that in a month we would come back for them, and in the end the procedures dragged on for almost two months, but we were finally able to go. Then we found out that in the meantime, Dimitri had been "pounded" saying: "with the bad you are, they will not come back for you," poor thing. Since he was over 10 years old, they made him testify before a judge to see if he wanted to come with us or not. We were there a few days with them in Russia and then we all flew to Spain. The trial was on January 20, 2000, which we hold every year. This year we have celebrated 20 years together.
With my mind squared, I thought we would have a year of adaptation and then it would be normal. It is the unconsciousness of not knowing where you are going.
At that moment you think: "I would bring all the children in the orphanage." However, when you know what there is and you see so many experiences of yours and other adoptive parents, when you see all the damage and suffering that these children have gone through and that they bring with them, things change. At that time it is difficult to be aware ... I believe that God uses some of our unconsciousness. If you project yourself into fear, it is impossible. But like most realities in life. But it is true that unconsciousness makes you take crucial steps.
It makes you jump "into the water" ...
A- Yes, yes, without a doubt.
The truth is that the first months were great. I was on leave, because the law that allowed maternity leave also by adoption had been passed. But the day came when they suddenly told me that I had to join, it was the end of the course -with the stresses that an end of the course has- and it was there that all the problems began to come. It was not easy for them to have to go to school right at the end of the course.
That is one thing that I would like to say to someone who wants to raise the issue of adoption, if there is one thing that I am clear that would do otherwise, it is that. Children with their age and tell me what they tell me that they have to be in school, I would not teach them the first year. They recommended that it was the best for them to learn the language and such, but for nothing. Establishing links is so important, so important. And a school, at that time, for them is almost the same as an orphanage, where they lived through a lot of problems. Once at school Dimitri gave problems at all times, but especially during the dining room hours.
I imagine that this new stage will also have brought new challenges and difficulties to your marriage and your family. As was? What were the biggest challenges?
A- Joining motherhood with children who have neither your language, nor your food, nor your culture ... is difficult. I remember at first that I did something that seemed aberrant to me, but it is that newcomers ate almost nothing because everything made them sick. Then, there came a time when I already told them: "If you don't eat it now, you eat it at the next meal and if not the next ..." Meals they hated because now they love it, but of course the change was very, very big.
On the subject of the language I had received some classes and such, but they were very fast, in a few months they understood everything and began to speak something. We took care of the fact that they were together in the same room and we were close, and little by little we were separating ourselves and them from rooms. Slowly. We also spent almost a month until they met the rest of the family, so that they did not have an excessive bombardment. But the fundamental challenge was to combine my profession and my husband's profession, that every two by three had missions and trips, with the rhythm of the children.
The biggest challenges were for me when my husband was gone. When it comes to the topic of motherhood and fatherhood, we, with our adoptive children, have clearly seen how the demands that our children made of me or my husband were very different. Everything that was affective - even if they didn't do it consciously - was about me. And yet my husband had hardly any problems with them. They accepted authority well. It is also true that having a teaching mother can be complicated. We also did not have the experience of biological children, so we could not know what was normal for the age, with what was typical of adoption. There were things mixing there. And it is not the same when you have a child from a very young age - for example, now I am a grandmother and I see it with my grandson - when you meet a child of almost eleven years old, to see how you set rules and limits. And, above all, what Dimitri told us later: that he went from having nothing to having everything, and that he did not know how to manage well.
We are very austere and very on the subject of effort. Society itself goes a little counter to this. Today all parents who have these values find it hard to row against the current, and if the links with the children are not fully done, then things are quite complicated.
Problems began to rain for us at school with Dimitri. In addition, I was struck by the fact that I was coordinator as head of studies at the school, I gave parts to the students in the morning and received parts of my son in the afternoon. The truth is that it was complicated. We tried to talk to the teachers to find out about the situations and try to take short steps that we could control, but many times they expelled him before and we could no longer find a solution. When they expelled him we could no longer be at home, and he hung out with bad company, it was very complicated. There came a time when he ran away from home, taking advantage of the fact that my husband was on a mission and I didn't know where he was. Then we changed his institute and took him to my school, to have a little more control over him.
Suddenly my own colleagues said to me: “What's wrong with Dimitri? It's bad?" and I: "I don't know where it is." It was pretty tough too.
At that moment my husband arrived from the mission, sat down to talk to him and said: "Look, something has to be done here." He listened to him and got into the professional troop army. And the truth is that it was phenomenal.
At first, he wanted to be there and then come home and keep doing whatever he wanted. So, the first weekend we said to him “look here at home there are some rules, and if you have problems with the rules, now that you work and you have your money, you are going to have even more problems with the rules. So if you want freedom, freedom has to be accompanied by responsibility, therefore you have to take responsibility for your life. ” So he stayed to live there in the barracks and lived everything he wanted to live and more. And as I was saying, the first weekend he came home with the duffel with all the clothes to wash. And I said "freedom accompanied by responsibility", and he returned with the duffel as he brought it to the barracks.
We are also like that, surely other people would do it differently, but our son had to receive very clear rules from us because if he did not pull the blanket and everything. With my husband we had the challenge of how to face these problems, each one had his vision, also considering that the demands towards each other were different. Our children were absolutely experts to see what was the “kit” that separated us and there to make a wedge. It happens in all marriages, but adoptive children I think they have like a radar. A little bit like “going to the extreme” to see if this is really going to be forever.
One of the things that my children asked me a lot was "are you going to give us back?", And I perfectly remember saying to my son "look Dimitri, I can't give you anything back because you are my son and At most I can give up taking care of you because I don't see myself capable, and then the authorities will take you and take you to a center and such, "" but I cannot return you anywhere, because you are my son. "
Then, reading Dimitri's book, I understood many things. It is clear that your parents fail you, being so small, destabilizes your whole world in a way that we are not aware of the deep wound that this leaves. We are not aware, little by little with life you discover what that means. Still, you also don't have the tools to know how to do things. But at least you already have clarity in your mind of what the problem is.
To all this, family and friends tell you "it is that you are very demanding", "of course with a teacher and a military man, who can think of it?", Everyone has to participate in how things are when they really do not have no idea. And it is true that maybe other people would do it differently. Now, with the passing of time I have met many adoptive parents, I think that for the circumstances of our children and older children, the fact of being firmer and more squared in the rules has been better for them. In fact, Dimitri, who is now someone else, tells us. So it is not known, because each child is also different and perhaps those children need a less methodical type of education.
The thing is that, in marriage, with all these tensions our paths were separated, and my husband and I, who loved each other very much, suddenly had terrible relationship problems. I was seriously considering separation, but even from my children. I thought "there you stay", "I can't handle this". And at that moment I was invited to a course in Christianity and I met the Lord. I met a pure and precious love, who taught me how my husband loved me, that I was not able to see him. And he showed me how I loved my children, that I was not able to see him either. Because you consider everything, of course, motherhood and everything. And when I returned, my children and my husband were amazed saying "what happened here?" And suddenly, instead of quarrels because he put sweets in the sandwiches and things that were hallucinating. And well, the Lord saved, saved what He Himself had begun. Because it is very funny, but it turns out that when I was in Russia with the study trip, it was when Dimitri was conceived.
So God had a plan ...
A- No, I don't think God had a plan for that. I believe that we screw things up and God is opening paths. And when we keep pestering her, she opens up other paths again. Then use those points of generosity that you may have at some point in time, to do works. The truth is that it was very nice, but of course, very hard. Now, all that complication, with the Lord, could be carried away.
And seeing this story now with some perspective, what has left you? In what things has it enriched you?
A- Well, in faith. I do not imagine that I would have met the Lord if all this had not happened to me. Suffering is very bad, but it makes you open doors to the Lord. When I couldn't get pregnant, I thought about science. When I lost my baby, I said a prayer (to the Virgen del Pilar because I am "maña", tradition rules). And God uses that minimum opening, to go taking a tour.
It's very funny, my son Dimitri is going to get married in no time. And among those “coincidences” that you see later is this: when we had to take Dimitri to the school where I worked - I live in Villalba and work in Carabanchel -, as there were some terrible traffic jams, what I did was take advantage and get up soon and go to the Church of Santa María de Caná in Pozuelo, to hear Mass before going to school, and so I could handle everything. Dimitri, who was coming with me (because I told him that he could go on the train or come with me in the car), stayed outside smoking. When it was very cold, he went into the Church. And that was the path that he also had to follow. The story that God made with him, using his time in the army, and also having an encounter with him. Well now it turns out that Dimitri is getting married in that same church of Santa María de Cana.
The other day I was praying right there saying: "Lord, how well you do things." How many times I kneel here praying for my son and now Dimitri is on your way, at your service and a precious marriage based on you is going to start. ” Yes, he is in our freedom, but the Lord covers us and marks us and we are his.
Of course, educating is an art and has very hard moments like the ones you have shared with us, but can you say that in all this history you have seen beauty?
Of course. Look, with my son Dimitri we have had a very bad time, but with my daughter Marina much more. When it seemed that everything was fine, Dimitri had returned home and was studying and we were all in the bosom of the Church, we had all converted and we had three precious years of "the ideal family". Well, at that moment, the biological parents of my children get in touch with them through social networks.
When we went to Russia, we never considered that such a possibility existed. And of course, I am able to understand the pain of those biological parents. Thank God they had been rehabilitated and they must have had a very intense pain of not knowing about their children. But for my children it was a very hard blow. In many things it meant starting over.
This is a way and the Lord is present. This suffering has brought us to Him, which is really what we need to have in our lives to be happy. Faith is what has sustained us, because with my daughter's problems, which have been harder, we have known who to turn to and He has given us the strength we need every day. And the rest of putting our trust in Him, because if you project yourself into the future, you lose yourself. I don't know how this is going to end, but I trust Him.
How do people, family, friends, schools, etc. help you in adoption? Have you felt clothed? At some point you mentioned that your family was very important. Do they help or "eat breakfast"?
A- All the people have helped me and "had breakfast". On the one hand we have had absolute acceptance and integration in the family, and the same with friends. There is no difference for being adopted.
The "breakfasts" is that many times, for being so integrated, we forget that they have a "painful past". And that reality exists and that reality has to be accepted and faced, and people who have not gone through that reality have no idea. Even we have no idea until things start to appear.
We had the need to group with other people who were also adoptive parents. It's the usual thing, when you're with a rare disease problem, you tend to hang out with people who have the same problem. Because empathy is different.
Many times we have heard the same thing: "all children give problems", "we all have children who are biological and also give problems". And no, look, I, once when someone has told me more than once in hard times, I have said: "Excuse me, but no, your children will never meet biological parents who appear out of nowhere "And of course that already closes their mouths, because it is true.
There are realities that we can integrate, such as the fact of being Spanish, although they well say that they have Russian origins. Like the fact that we are their parents, but they have biological parents, and they have been talked about without a problem. In fact, when they appeared, there was a name for them, a history that is part of their history and that part of their history must be embraced, respected, and sometimes also suffered.
So, embrace and respect the reality of each one, and look for empathy in people who are aware that there is something that is different.
What advice would you give to mothers who are in process or have already adopted?
A- The most important advice for me is to be with the children without going to school for at least a year. It is that I have seen it with my grandson: the ties of the first year are so necessary! And they will not have it in the first year of life, but unless they have it in the first year of the family relationship. That for me is crucial. There are countries where “home schooling” is and they let you have them at home. They won't let you here, but I would insist.
Do you encourage people to adopt?
A- Yes, I encourage people to adopt. If you ask me and my husband asks if we would adopt again, we say yes. Yes
This weekend we have been celebrating my son's birthday and we have a beautiful family. His problems remain, but we have a beautiful family.
Encourage yes. Now be aware. Because we have known couples who have adopted and who have later left their children in centers and institutions because they couldn't cope with them, and that is terrible. That return, which is not to return, is that you do not take charge and lose custody, just as if you are a biological mother, the same. But it is not the same for an adopted child who has already suffered a loss, it is not the same, for one who has already suffered a loss, it is not the same.
So, think very well at the beginning of this process, including contacting people to show you the reality that exists, so that you are as prepared and aware as possible when taking on the challenge.
A believing marriage has a strength, that of embracing the cross, because you know that every day you have the strength that God gives you to embrace that cross. That is not going to take away your suffering, but it is going to make it easier for you to face many hard circumstances.
And whoever does not have that experience, the Lord also uses unconsciousness and uses the desires of motherhood and fatherhood, whatever it takes to make paths. But I understand that yes, it is good to know that the challenge is great.
It must be said yes. It must be said yes because families are precious and especially because those children need that love, because they are the only ones who are not guilty. Those children need that love.
Thank you, Rosa, for giving us this time, for opening us with such generosity not only your home but also your heart and doing us so much good with your testimony full of beauty, that beauty that saves us.