Court

I was so nervous for court! We had some drama the night before. I was feeling a bit sick and didn't go to the orphanage, only my husband. Well something set off Vova. Possibly the knowledge of what the next day would entail, or the arrival of the family that hosted him over the winter-there to adopt his friend Kolya. There was a lot of drama and acting out and my husband arrived back at the apt telling me he wasn't sure if he even wanted to be adopted by us. We told our facilitator and he said he would contact the orphanage first thing in the morning. Well he called the orphanage director and the next day she went and called Vova out of class (he was in public school that was across from the orphanage) to explain why he had acted that way. He said he didn't know, he did want to be adopted by us, etc etc. Our facilitator also went to the orphanage and asked him if he was sure before we had court. We were very clear in telling our facilitator that we did NOT want the boys to be forced into anything they didn't want to do. Everyone assured us that he said he didn't mean it, that they wanted to be adopted, etc etc. So on that rough note we all went forward with our day!

Our facilitator Roma had gone over what to expect and what questions they would ask earlier in the day very thoroughly. I felt a bit like we were going in for some big life changing test and were going to be quizzed on life....
We took a taxi over and arrived a bit early so Roma and my husband grabbed a coffee. I couldn't imagine anything on my stomach.
When it was finally time we went inside, waited outside the room for a few minutes then were ushered into the courtroom. It was a small room with simple tables and chairs.

After going through the first formalities they asked my husband to stand so they could ask him questions. And then the judge proceeded to ask him the bulk of the questions! When she was done with him and I stood- She basically asked me if I had anything to add....lol. I gave some answer about how excited we were and about our support system and that was it! I got off very easy to my husbands chagrin!

Then some other people gave their witness (someone from the orphanage testified about the boys-giving all the details that proved we were able to adopt them) and I think someone else had to say something, a bit fuzzy on the details. Not long after, the judge gave her verdict and congratulations and wished us luck with our new family!

We had discussed names and Vova wanted a new American name-so he is now "E"

Our pic afterwards!