If there were not the Babies’ Shelter here, I and my son would have to live out of doors.

I was placed into an orphanage when I was 3. My mother didn’t have a permanent home, and she didn’t want to work either. My aunt told me later that she would beat both me and my little brother.

First I was in an orphanage in Riga, but when I was 6 years old, I was taken to Malta Orphanage in the eastern Latvia. When I was in grade 9, my mother emerged all of a sudden. She cried and asserted that she wanted me back. But it turned out, that after the heavy drinking, she was not well any longer. She was taken to hospital, and treated for alcoholism there for a long time. This did not help either. She recommenced drinking, and now she is in a home for invalids, since she needs to be cared for.

While living in orphanages, I often felt lonely and cried a lot. I did not trust my feelings and tears to anyone. I was afraid, and ashamed that I was so weak. I kept everything to myself. I was dreaming day in day out of living with a family. I was longing to have a place that could be my home, a real home.

When I finished grade 9, I entered a vocational school, and graduated from it successfully. Then I entered another school to become a secretary, it is where I’m still in. In this school, I met also the father of my child. In the beginning, I was evading this friendship because the others were saying that he was a former prisoner, and it’s better not to make friends with such. Later, when I met the mother of this guy, she told me that her son was convicted being innocent. She said he was only seventeen years old, and his friends made him to take all guilt upon himself. I came to believe in this person, and in love.

We hired an apartment, where we lived for 7 months. In the beginning, everything seemed to be good, but then the friend took up using alcohol again. He did not want to work any longer, either.

Soon I learned that I was pregnant. Both me and the boyfriend were happy about this news. Yet, even this did not change anything, he just went on using alcohol. I was trying to keep him away from drinking, but I failed, and he got into the habit of beating me. Then I realized that this was not going to be the life I had dreamed of. Then he started to hide form police, he had become accomplice in a murder.

The father of my child is himself and adoptive child, but in 1995 he found his real mother and went to live with her. He was just living and drinking there until a misfortune happened, and they had begun to look for him. The mother did not tell me where he was, so I was left alone.

Then the time came to give birth to the child, I was taken to hospital. There again, I was alone. When Dmitry was born, they gave me him after a longer while. When I first took him, I felt unspeakable tenderness for him. When I was expecting him, I had no feelings for him. I was indifferent. All the more strange it seemed to me that now this tiny human being is so dear for me, and that I need him so much! I don’t ever even get bored by his crying, it only makes me pity, cuddle and guard him more. I realized also that I did not want for my child such a father as was my friend whom I trusted.

Later, I learned that he had reproached his parents for not taking care of us. He had been angry with them because they had not welcomed us and taken into the family, but he did not do anything about it. I guess he’s in confinement by now. I don’t want even to meet him again.

It is only now that the real problems arise for me. It has turned out that nobody needs me, and I cannot even return to the hostel together with the child. I cannot even take a flat, I don’t have any money at all. The friend’s parents refused very strictly to take us two, and it hurts that they did not want to take their grandson.

Then there came some people from the government of Balvi city and said that they would help us, but not right away. They asked the head of the school to allow me and my son to stay in the hostel for a week. But what then? Where could I go, what could I do? How was I supposed to live? I considered the possibility to go and live with my aunts, but they drink every day and beat each other. How could I live there having the baby? Was I to go to live out of doors? That helpless I was against the life!

Then a day came when I was told that they have found a solution for my situation. They said that somewhere in a “Babies’ shelter” there is place for us where they would take me and my son. I was happy that ,after leaving the hospital, I came to people that warmly welcomed us. In the beginning I felt sad in this new for me place, but the houseparents were so welcoming that I came to feel safe, and, what was the most important, I could be together with my son.

While living in the “Babies’ Shelter” I learned more about God. I have never denied Him, but here during the devotions together with other mothers, I understood that God loves me and answers my prayers. I began to pray that God would send in my way people who would care for me when I leave the  “Babies’ Shelter”. And a miraculous thing happened. One day, the child’s father’s sister and her husband found us, and unselfishly offered support for me and Dmitry. I was surprised that we mean something for them, and I understood that this was God’s answer to my prayers. We decided that I would continue my studies, and that they would try to keep in touch with me. Who knows, maybe in the future they will be good relatives of me and Dmitry.

Thanks to “Pakapieni” that they helped me when I had the most difficult time, and that I’m no longer alone!

Recorded by Dana Shultz

August 26, 2001