Beryl and John Cleland’s daughter Alana wins her five-year battle to adopt the little boy who won her heart in a Romanian orphanage
Beryl and John Cleland were fast asleep when their phone rang at 1am on a Saturday. “It has happened!” said the chirpy voice down the phone. “It only took 10 minutes. It’s quite unreal but I’m his mum.”
The voice belonged to the couple’s 31-year-old daughter Alana, who had spent the last five-and-a-half years battling Romanian adoption authorities for the right to adopt eight-year-old Iani Lingurar.
“I didn’t know what to say,” Beryl (59) reveals. “After all these years of fighting, it took 10 minutes in a courtroom. It felt like we should be celebrating with fireworks, but it was 1am in the morning.
“We trusted it was going to happen one day. During the years when everything seemed to be bogged down with changes to Romanian laws, we had to push through the paperwork and complications. But we knew it would happen.”
Alana first met Iani in 1999 when he was a 10-month-old baby, lying in a cot in a Romanian orphanage. The New Plymouth pediatric nurse was on her oE in England when she decided to volunteer at a Romanian orphanage for six weeks.
“Since Alana was 14 years old, she has wanted to work with Romanian orphans,” Beryl says. “So when she was in London, she flew to Romania to do some volunteer work and that’s when she and Iani met.
“Iani couldn’t take his eyes off her. When she got back to London, she revealed that the little boy was still very much in her thoughts.”
Alana started emailing me, saying, I can't get Iani out of my mind. I think about him from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to bed.' I remember her saying,
I didn’t go to Romania to get attached to any one child. What’s happening here? I’m a single woman living on the opposite side of the world.'”
For the next nine months, Alana and her family explored why she had such strong feelings for Iani. John and Beryl warned their second-born child to make sure that she wasn’t adopting to fill an emptiness inside herself. The Christian family prayed and waited for an answer.
“It was about nine months later, when I suddenly realised it was something beyond her and I wrote an email to her saying, `Alana, go and get him,'” Beryl says. “I knew it was right and I told her if she wanted to go and get this little boy, she should. That was a very deep few days. But it was definitely the right thing to do.”
Alana flew back to Romania on Iani’s second birthday, unsure if she would find him. When she entered the orphanage there were only two babies she remembered from her first visit. Thankfully, one was Iani.
“It confirmed to Alana that this was meant to be,” Beryl says. “She took him a birthday present. It was a little truck in a paper bag. He put the truck on the floor and played with the paper bag.”
In oay 2003, Alana came back to New Zealand for her sister Angela’s wedding. She obtained a four-month visitor’s visa for Iani, who was elated to meet his New Zealand family. on arrival, lawyers told Alana she could try to adopt Iani from New Zealand.
But Romanian officials declined the adoption and she was forced to return Iani to his homeland. The boy’s birth mother refused to sign him over to authorities and Alana didn’t have a Romanian residency permit to give her adoption rights, halting the process.
“Those were very hard days,” Beryl says. “The feeling was like deadness. We knew this could change everything, that we could lose Iani and he could lose us. He was part of the family and loved being with us.
“Iani would sit around the dinner table with all the adults and say, `Come on, talk!’ He wanted to be part of what was happening. He had to have his say. He seemed to have a real sense of belonging to this family unit and he knew we loved and accepted him.”
Based in Timisoara, Romania, Alana has spent the past 20 months battling to adopt Iani and bring him back to New Zealand. Unable to work without residency, she has relied on family, friends and strangers to support her mission.
A whopping $18,000 was raised through a Bring Iani Home Appeal that started in Alana’s hometown. Beryl says the response has been enormous.
“We have been blown away by what people have done. The money the appeal has generated has been really humbling. The bank would ring up and say letters and donations had been dropped in. Kids had even given their pocket money.”
A mixture of emotions, including joy and relief, overwhelmed Beryl and John a fortnight ago when Alana called to say the Romanian court had given her the green light to adopt Iani. The elated mother and son are now tying up loose ends and hope to arrive home in the new year.
Iani is excited about seeing his mates at Spotswood Primary and Northpoint Kids Church – both groups have kept in contact with the soccer lover since his abrupt departure 20 months ago.
“Alana says Iani is so excited about coming home, he’s telling all his friends,” Beryl says. “He is very much aware they went back to Romania to finalise the adoption.
“When I spoke to him on Saturday morning he asked if the bunk beds were up and ready for him to sleep on. It was at that point that I realised his thinking was starting to settle back in New Zealand.”
John is proud of Alana and understands the doggedness that kept her fighting through the hard times.
“It will be great to have them home at last,” he says. “The table was pretty bare last Christmas. But I kept the end goal in mind.”
John, Beryl, family and friends are now preparing a fitting homecoming, sure to be full of joy and tears.
“I imagine Alana will be bounding home, elated that they are mother and son, which has been her dream for the past five-and-a-half years,” Beryl says. “We know Alana and Iani were meant to be together. It was something she never planned to do in her life but the bond was there right from the beginning. Now we can say it has happened, and it is a miracle.” Rebecca Milne