A Great Day

As expected, sleep was eluding us the night before our final court day. Not for the reason we expected, but because the room next to ours was now occupied. The paper thin walls leaving nothing to the imagination in our rustic Stavropol hotel. I won't elaborate, but the man next door was quite sick. Oh well! More time to pray and prepare for court. An unexpected snow storm came upon Stavropol in the night. Well, I say unexpected, but in Russia, I suppose snow is always expected. Its life as usual no matter the weather. The women still wear the tallest stiletto heals I have ever seen. Everyone drives, goes to work and carries on with life as though nothing new happened.

Our driver said to meet him downstairs at 9. Now, generally his times are a relative term. 9 means sometime before 10 as we have come to learn. But today, we thought surly he will be on time for court. Wrong! We waited nervously, wondering what happens in Russia when you are late to court. Around 9:30 the lady at the front desk brought the phone over, held it out and simply said, "Talk". Our translator was on the other end. He said we could not wait any longer. Walk out of the hotel turn left and turn left again at the corner. Then just keep walking until you see the court house." Um, what?!! Yesterday it took us a half hour to drive to the court house. Now you want us to walk in the snow and we have no idea where we are going? I don't know but this sounds like a really terrible idea. If we get lost, we can't ask for directions because no one speaks English in this town. What choice did we have though? Okay, God! Please help us to turn at the right corner and walk down the right road and somehow make it there on time. What a beautiful site as we rounded the corner to see our driver running toward us! Thank you God!

We made it to court on time although most everyone was already there. A man from the Ministry of Education, a woman from the Ministry of Health, the social worker, the director of the orphanage, our lawyer, our translator and the prosecutor. We said hello and stared at each other until they went back to their Russian conversations and laughter. We sat awkwardly, wondering what they might be saying about us. When the judge entered the room everyone's demeanor instantly changed. No more smiles or lighthearted banter. The judge got down to business quickly. She read through the rules of court and had us stand multiple times and then sit again. Finally the questions began. Much to our surprise, she seemed a bit more relaxed today. She asked some of the same questions and some new ones too. Today seemed to be more focused on Elena's health status and if we could meet her needs. She questioned our ability to care for two children. "It will be so much work and won't your son be jealous? How will you ever give them both attention?" I guess in Russia they don't have many children, but to us it doesn't seem any different than having more than one biological child. People do it all the time and it usually works out okay. Our questions did not seem very long this day or maybe because yesterday was so terrible that now we were pleasantly surprised. With the first few questions, it was apparent that her heart had been softened toward us and I was feeling more confident in a positive ruling.

When she had no more questions for us, we moved on to each of the others in the room. They all had good recommendations for us and all said that it was impossible to find a Russian family for this girl because of her mother's history. The judge wanted to know a great deal about her medical diagnosis. the lady from the ministry of health read off a collection of terms, mostly relating to heart disease, bicuspid valve, open oval, etc. Then she said, " But we give her a vitamin now so everything is okay." Apparently the judge loves for everyone to know her knowledge of medical issues. It was hard not to laugh because they their medical "facts" sounded like those of my 4 year old son. "Mama, my belly hurts. I better get some cars band-aids to make it feel better."

After everyone spoke, it was time to review the documents we had prepared. She simply went through each one and read the title so the prosecutor could witness that we had completed everything that was required. This took longer than everyone's testimony combined and then some. It was the first time I had seen all our documents together since we had prepared them in different batches over the past few months. They filled two of the largest binders I had ever seen. We fought sleep through this time, trying our best to look interested and engaged. Our translator stopped translating and just started talking to us. Why not I guess. The judge doesn't know the difference. After a brief recess, the judge gave her ruling that she was granting our adoption. WOHOO! We are officially a family of four!