Vacationing in Romania — to care for babies

About two months after those first Web searches, there we were in our stocking feet — each of us up to our ears in little kids. Hal and Lilly worked in the non-mobile (baby) room. Emma worked with the toddlers, and I had the special needs kids.

Most of the children at Tutova have been brought to the clinic because they were severely underweight or their families were simply too poor to adequately care for them. They typically stay until they are 3 years old or until they can either return to their families, get adopted or move on to another facility.

We spent our days, starting about 9 a.m., awash in children. We all held, played with, fed, soothed children until lunch. Emma and Lilly pitched in like the other volunteers. They rose to the task of dealing with babies begging to be taken out of their cribs, even though their arms were already filled with other children needing to be held.

They patted their backs, held their bottles, and ran around the halls with them, even when they were exhausted and could have used a break.

Emma wrestled her toddlers, fed them, searched out more for them to eat, wiped tears and runny noses and gave out what she hoped would be plenty of hugs. So many cried when she put them down.

Lilly cuddled and soothed her babies, paying close attention to Ramona, who didn't have quite the focus of the other babies. Little Emil always wanted to be near Lilly, and she always obliged. "Come on over here," she'd say balancing a baby in each arm and one in her lap. "We have lots of room."

Global Volunteers / AP file In this photo released by Global Volunteers, Lilly Fisher plays with a girl named Mihaela.

Neither Emma or Lilly spent much time doing diapers. The staff were pros at wrestling the bulky cloth and pin contraptions into shape. Anyway, Emma and Lilly seemed to feel diapering was a low priority when there was so much hugging, playing and goofing around to be done.

At 4 p.m. our bus would be waiting to bring us back to the hotel for dinner. We would all compare notes about the babies. Who was cranky, who ate a lot that day, who needed more attention? Emma and Lilly wanted to know again and again, if I was sure Romania doesn't allow international adoptions any more. Any of the children could have been a new Fisher. But, it's true, no more international adoptions for now in Romania.

On our last day, Emma stood over tiny Ana Maria's crib and cried. I told Emma that the babies would be cared for, and some would find good homes. I wanted to mean it.

IF YOU GO ... GLOBAL VOLUNTEERS St. Paul, Minn.-based Global Volunteers sends 2,000 Americans each year to work in 20 countries; globalvolunteers.org or 800-487-1074. GLOBAL AWARE globeaware.org or 877-588-4562 CROSS-CULTURAL SOLUTIONS crossculturalsolutions.org or 800-380-4777 Source: The Associated Press

I told Lilly the same thing on the train to Bucharest as she cried quietly with her head in her hands.

"What's going to happen to all of them?" she wanted to know.

Again, I didn't have a perfect answer. But I wanted her to understand that the days she and her sister spent with the babies were happy ones for all of them, and that meant something.

We have since returned home. Emma has her toddlers' names taped to her wall where she sees them every day. Lilly's Facebook is filled with photos of her infants.

They both remain skeptical about having kids — thank God. But each night before dinner, they end grace with a new simple prayer, one any mother knows: "Bless our babies."

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