Mar 10, 2010

It's Official.......The Judge said YES!!!

After almost 2 1/2 hrs of grueling questions and alot of questions we were not prepared for, the Judge finally said Yes. Thank You GOD!!!
The day before when Svetlana was preparing us for court we went over the article about the little boy who was killed by his adoptive parents in Pennsylvania and other questions that would be asked of us, she also said court lasts about an 1 hour. We were nervous but felt prepared. Poor Justin has known all along that most questions are asked to the man and Svetlana even reiterated that to us this morning, and well that was true.
Justin did get most of the questions but neither him nor anyone else was prepared for some of the questions that were asked of us. Even Svetlana herself was shocked and we could see that everytime the judge would ask a question that Svetlana was not prepared for ...her eyes would get as big as saucers when she would start to translate it to us. I have to hand it to Justin. He did very well considering all of these questions, that even Svetlana and everyone else for that matter, were suprised about. I was freaking out a bit when the questions seemed to never end. Sometimes the answers we gave were not detailed enough and she would ask for more. This is funny because when prepping for court we were told to answer the questions but not too much detail. LOL....We felt so confused!

So here is the funny part...do you all remember the psychology evaluation we had to take when we were here on our first trip? Well, apparently Justin and I didn't pass it all that greatly. LOL.....The psychologist recomended that we seek phsychologicl counseling. I wish you all could have been in the court room when the Judge asked Justin "Why the phsycologist would reccomend this"...Poor Justin..He was like...UHH...UHHH...I don't know???? LOL....
My jaw was on the ground when this happened.....Anyway, the really funny thing about it is that Tatiana, the Minister of Education that we spoke with on the first trip, stood and said that she herself had not passed such a test and that people they would not expect to pass the test did. So she was basically saying that the test was a joke. Anyway, to make a long story short there were three people there on our behalf along with our translator. The Minister of Education Director, the social worker and the orphange doctor.

All three of them had nothing but wonderful things to say about us and how we bonded with Samara and what a great relationship we had, and they all did not understand why the phsycologist would have such a reccomendation.
Even the orphanage doctor made a statement that she believed that Samara felt our love for her from the first visit, because in the three months we were gone she had grown more quickly in a short amount of time than usual. Gaining 2lbs and growing 1 1/2" taller. I was so choked up over that and I am so glad that they saw how much we loved her even though we had just met.

The hardest part for me to listen to was hearing that in the entire time Samara was in the regional databank, only 11 Russian families had looked at her file/Medical records and nobody wanted our precious angel. It made us sad but we believe there is a reason for this and that reason was she was meant to be with us.

So now we wait out the 10 day waiting period from home and we will be flying back here on 26th of March to bring our beautiful princess home forever. We will get to Samara on the 27th and stay one night (Sergei has offered us to stay with him).....before driving to the baby home to pick her up. Wow, we thought this was so nice and such a sweet gesture, and how cool will it be to see how an actual Russian family lives. We will pick her up on 28th (Sunday) and drive straight to the airport to fly back to Moscow where we will stay all week finishing up all the legal processes. We will fly home on Friday April 2nd, two days before Easter and Samara will be an American citizen as soon as we land on US soil. We are just elated about this....We will be home for Easter....Another prayer answered. Thank You God!!!

We are in Moscow now and I am down in their business center typing this because the internet is not free, and well...we are being frugal...so I cannot upload any pic's and I know I said we would but I promise we will once we get home.

Thank you to everyone for your prayers and wonderful words and thoughts....We are just in heaven right now.

One more thing...this means that if you have e-mailed me, I am not able to get your e-mails at this time. By the way Britt....we could not get onto see the video you made of our boy. What a bummer, but we can't wait to watch it. Thanks for doing this for us!!!

5 comments:

  1. So happy for all of you....so, officially now a family of four! That's wonderful news. When you get back and get settled, I'd love to talk to you about your court experiences and your experiences on this second trip! Blessings on your new family!!!!

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  2. I am sooo happy for you, and laughing hearing about justin in court. We knew there was something wrong wtih him. lol j/k, we love you guys and couldn't be more elated. Soooo happy she will be here for Easter, how awesome is that.

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  3. I am so very excited for you all! :)

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  4. yeah!!! We're so excited for you - she's officially yours!!!! I can't imagine how thrilled you both must feel. It's been such a long journey - both literally and figuratively - and it must feel like such a relief that only a few days and some airline flights seperate you from being all together forever. I can't wait to see some pics and hear more about the whole court situation. I'm sure Justin and you both handled it like champs.
    See you soon!!!

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  5. CONGRATS! I will be emailing you asking about court questions... we go to court in 3 weeks and we've heard it has been very tough recently. So happy for y'all!

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