Last night Mike and I went over outlines of everything we wanted to say, after going over our home study and financial documents. We went through all the questions we received thanks to families who already went through court with this judge.
We were picked up at 9:30 and headed with our coordinator and social worker to the courthouse. This time we were in the criminal court floor. It was a larger courtroom and had a jail cell off to the side with a long bench in it. We got settled and waited for our 10 am trial time. We were getting a little worried as out interpreter had not shown up yet by ten and the Judge was ready to come in. Thankfully she showed up 1 minute later and barely had time to take off her coat before the judge walked in. We stood as she walked in. She read the document stating our case and asked us to stand to read us our rights. Once again, we waived our right to remove anyone from the court room. Then she basically said ‘who will speak first?’ Michael stood and she began asking questions. He spoke for about 45 minutes. It was not hard at all. Questions were like: Do you have friends? What do you do in your job? Describe your wife? Who does the chores in the house?
The prosecutor grilled the other couple for 20 minutes about the recent Harrison case of a child dying in a hot car. They got lectured and asked about their thoughts. She didn’t even ask us about it.
I stood and answered all of 4 questions. Describe your husband? Do you have enough love for these girls? Will you have any help when you get home?
Then the Orphanage doctor and the social worker stood to give their testimony. They both stated the girls medicals, their birth family history and their thoughts about us in seeing us interact with the girls. It was so nice to hear that they thought we were so good interacting with the twins.
The judge left the court room for not even 2 minutes and came back to read her verdict. It was a wonderful moment even if it was a bit anticlimactic. I don’t even remember what she said. Basically “congratulations, you are parents” and that was it. Everyone shook our hands and we left. It was over in less than 2 hours.
We were going to go to Fortuna for a celebratory lunch but our coordinator and interpreter had paperwork to finish and it was snowing out so we just headed to the hotel restaurant because we were emotionally drained and just wanted to relax. We changed, relaxed, ate and then headed to tell the girls that we are officially their parents. It was a great visit. I haven’t been taking a lot of pictures lately because we have been so busy just spending time with the girls. I know once my parents come my dad will take tons.
We ate in the hotel for dinner again as we were just too tired to venture out in the dark and snow. We had dinner with the couple who picked up their son today from baby home 2 hours outside of Tver. He is adorable and well behaved. Such a cutie.
Here are some random pictures I have taken today. Just thought I'd share.
This is a Kitty in the window of
one of the old Russian homes near our hotel.
Weird picture of the monkey bath toy that Masha likes to play with, I had no idea that I took this picture, I think it was done accidentally
when she was pulling on the cord on the camera.
This is a weird little kiosk near our hotel. It sells all sorts of sausages and frankfurters. There are kiosks like this all over the city on street corners that sell snacks, sodas, cigarettes etc. But this one looks like it only sells hotdogs!
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