Legends of the Twins Cirpaci

By Terry B. Murphy

In 2001, the author and her husband traveled to Romania to adopt their two-year old son. Upon arrival, they received the shocking news that he had a twin sister with special needs living at the same orphanage. Legends of the Twins Cirpaci describes their frantic three-year effort to adopt her and reunite her with her brother, all in the midst of Romania's moratorium on intercountry adoption as the country attempted to join the European Union. The book also recounts the deleterious impact of Romania's harsh orphanage system on the children's development in various areas of their lives, and their courage in overcoming these challenges. Compelling and poignant, this is a story that every parent (not just adoptive parent) could benefit from reading. Unlike many adoption books, it also includes the twins' perspectives on what happened to them. As such, older adopted children might also find it helpful. Both biography and parenting narrative, it describes a nearly unbelievable (but it really did happen!) situation in a relatable way. Filled with humor and heart, Legends of the Twins Cirpaci is ultimately a triumph of the extraordinary power of care, the capacity of human beings to overcome severe deprivation, and the beauty of the human spirit. Legends of the Twins Cirpaci is a heart-warming and sometimes heart-wrenching tale of a journey of love, determination, patience, and humor. Reading it is a reminder of all that family can be in its best incarnation, and that belonging does not depend on biology. A wonderful, funny read.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America; author of Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Oct 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662917721

Book preview

Begin

And tell me truly first, for I should know,

who are you, where do you hail from, where’s your home and family?

Homer, The Odyssey¹

The legends begin, as legends tend to do, a long time ago in a land far away. In late spring 1998, a set of twins—named Samuel and Emanuela Cirpaci by persons unknown—were born in Arad, Romania. And then for a time no one really knows much about what happened, because they were immediately abandoned.

The records (such as they are) indicate they were born a month prematurely at Arad Maternity Hospital and transferred to Arad Placement Center 1 (an orphanage). But then the trail goes cold for a number of years. Paperwork is bad or nonexistent, memories are murky, and no one who was there at the time is available to ask.

But it mattered. And they matter. While it is important to describe the circumstances that led to their eventual adoptions (and I will), it is more important to focus on what happened afterward—their lives, their problems, their successes, them.

My name is Terry, and I am their mom (adoptive mom, to be precise). I will do my best to tell their story, but in some (perhaps, many) ways I am an unreliable narrator. I am biased, my recollections have faded, and as I have learned over the years, often the way I perceive things is not the way they do. I am also a step removed. I am telling their story; it is not my own. As such, the chronicles that follow fall into the realm of legend—not memoir—a kind of family lore.

But in 2018, I was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. Although I am in remission now, I realized it was time to put these legends to paper because ya never know… The twins were so young they don’t personally remember much of what happened in the early days and I do not want these stories, their stories, to be lost forever.

In a way, their lives are examples of humankind’s responsibilities to each other. Their story is one of what happens when children suffer extreme deprivation in their early years; it is an exploration into what human beings are owed. The facts are that something big happened, something very out of the ordinary, and overall something very good came of it. But we were always waiting for the sense of living in crisis to end, and it just never did. Indeed, I live with a kind of lingering, nagging worry even today (though perhaps that is the case with any parent).

What follows is not a deep-dive analysis of intercountry adoption, but rather a series of narratives that demonstrate the sometimes unexpected ways it impacted various aspects of Samuel and Emanuela’s lives. It is not a linear, this happened and then that happened timeline. Rather, in each vignette their development in that area so sharply veered from what would be considered normal that it warrants explanation. There is already plenty of research into the attachment and learning issues of children adopted from Romania. My point here is not to lecture or proselytize, but show two of the (real) fragile lives and tender hearts hidden behind the statistics. There are no full-blown chapters; I offer no findings beyond empathy.

I am not trying to persuade anyone of anything, only to describe our experiences, which may not necessarily extrapolate to other children adopted from Romanian orphanages, or really to anyone at all. Once I had exhausted my recollections in a particular area, there was nothing else to add. As such, each legend ends with a rather abrupt Forrest Gump-ian "That’s all I have to say about that!" flourish.

Parenting for us was a vastly different endeavor than the regular process detailed in all the child development books. The circumstances regarding how our family was formed are so unusual (bizarre, even) that it is—if nothing else—a story worth telling. And for them, growing up was made infinitely more difficult by the deprivations of their early lives, as well as their adoptions.

Once the decision was made to adopt internationally, we were in uncharted territory. The result was a cascading, relentless, years-long deluge of dilemmas, with decisions made all the more difficult because they had to be made on someone else’s behalf. One of the reasons it was so hard was precisely because there was no rulebook or anyone to ask. We had to make it up as we went along. Later on, Samuel and Emanuela will share their own views of what happened to them because, of course, at the time they had no say in it at all.

Stories about intercountry adoption often start with a description of the agonizing journey to reach the decision to adopt…the years of trying to conceive a biological child, the infertility treatments, the disappointments, and finally acceptance. In fact, during the home study as part of the application process, I had to claim I had properly grieved my infertility. (I first said no because frankly I never felt any grief at all, but the social worker said if I didn’t say yes the application would be denied.)

I was very ambivalent about having a biological child. I waited until my late thirties to even try. More importantly, my husband Scott (the kindest man I have ever known) and I had volunteered at an orphanage in Honduras in 1999, and the experience had a profound impact on both of us; we found it hard to justify jumping through hoops to have a child when there were so many desperate children already in the world needing families.

But in general, I would like to dispense with all that history, because in a way it just doesn’t matter. It is like focusing on the wedding when it is really the marriage that counts. This story is about the lives of Samuel and Emanuela, not the path to parenthood of Terry and Scott.

In front of startled onlookers in a Boston hospital lobby in early 2000, we threw the packet of forms to start infertility treatments in a large trash can and called the adoption agency the next day. From there, things moved quickly.

¹ All epigraphs from Homer’s The Odyssey are taken from the translation by Robert Fitzgerald (New York, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1961).

Meet

Direct me, put me on the road with someone.

Homer, The Odyssey

I first met Samuel when the adoption agency faxed me his picture. At the time, I was working in an office at Harvard Law School with a great group of fellow staffers. They had all been supportive (no one more so than my boss, Anne-Marie Slaughter, at that time the Director of Graduate and International Legal Studies) as we moved through the adoption process. We all crowded excitedly around the machine for a first look at this little boy. But as his face emerged, I found myself overwhelmed with emotion; so much so that I had to leave the room to compose myself. I do not have words to describe the visceral, intense connection I immediately felt to him. Although he was two years old by then and we had been warned toddler adoptions could be challenging, there was never any doubt we would proceed with his adoption.

Fast forward six months, a boatload of paperwork, and a not unsubstantial amount of money, and we were on our way to Romania (coincidentally on the same day as Scott’s 42nd birthday). The money issue was just one of many ethical areas I would grow to question and struggle with as I became more intimately involved with intercountry adoption. As anyone who ventures into it soon finds, the world of intercountry adoption exists as a kind of parallel universe, with its own rules, language, and problems. This discomfort would ultimately result in my writing my doctoral dissertation at Rhode Island's Salve Regina University on the many thorny issues that erupted in Romanian intercountry adoption. Many of these issues were why there were so many adoptions: too many children, an incompetent and callous government, no social infrastructure, and a culture completely lacking in compassion for the vulnerable. To this day, despite significant improvements, child abandonment remains a problem in Romania.

At this point, one might wonder why only Samuel is mentioned. On a cold, gray day in February, we traveled to the orphanage in Arad, Romania to bring him home. In the car, we received the stunning news that he had a twin sister at the same orphanage. This sister was thought to be autistic (in fact, it turned out she was not), and this was apparently why there was no mention of her in any of our paperwork and why she had not been available for adoption at the same time.

By now, reeling from the shock of that announcement on top of being about to become a mother to a little boy I did not know, I was a nervous wreck (Scott was mostly excited), only to be told we had to come back later because the children were still napping. At loose ends, we went to a restaurant completely empty of any customers besides us, furthering the surreal quality of the afternoon.

As I look back on that day, it is a kaleidoscope of images. The narrative that follows is disjointed because that is how I experienced it. There are parts I do not remember at all. I moved through the day in a shell-shocked daze as I realized we would be taking one twin home, and leaving the other behind.

I remember they brought the twins to see us along with their entire group of children. Sammy and Emmy (to use their childhood nicknames) wore