Court Date

We are now officially the Mama and Papa of Mollie Rose, Aidan Kurt and Callan Kurt!  We had our court hearing today and the Judge and the two jurors approved our request to adopt our three little darlings.  We will be "official" after our ten day waiting period.

Our day started a little earlier than a normal day because we had to have time to dress in our nice outfits for court and we had to walk to the courthouse from our apartment.  Our driver, Misha was off picking up the kids and their orphanage representatives.  We arrived at the courthouse at 9:15 am well ahead of our hearing time of 10 am.  It's better to be earlier rather than later for something like this!  The kids arrived a little after 9:30 am and we all waited for 40 minutes until the Judge was ready for us.  The boys were reunited with Mollie for the first time in over a year.  Unfortunately for the shutterbug in me they were reunited in the car without us present.  Shucks.  The kids were all smiles when they entered the room where we were waiting.  Each child was dressed nicely and Mollie had her hair pulled into pig tails for our important day.  The boys were cute in their blue jeans and sweaters although Aidan was wearing hot pink socks and Callan was wearing pastel pink socks.  Either someone at the orphanage is color blind or pink socks were all that was clean today.

The actual proceeding was very official.  At 10:10 am we were invited into the Judge's chambers.  In addition to Heather and I, Luda, our translator, the kids, one representative from each orphanage, the local inspector, a prosecutor, two jurors, a court secretary and the Judge were present at the hearing.  The official language of the hearing was Ukrainian even though everyone in the room, except us of course, spoke Russian outside the Judge's chambers.  The Judge started off by informing us of our rights as they relate to the proceedings.  After that the Judge read, word for word, our application and reviewed the passports and indentifications of everyone in the room.  The Judge asked Heather and I both if we had anything to add or to edit in our application. We had nothing to add or edit.  The Inspector next read to the court her approval of the adoption and the reasons for her approval.  Each orphanage representative then also indicated their approval of our adoption to the court's satisfaction.  Next the Judge read into record each document in our dossier.  I didn't remember that there were so many documents in our dossier.  At this point Aidan became a little restless. The Inspector was kind enough to give Aidan a pen and some paper to doodle on for the rest of the proceeding.  Mollie and Callan were great throughout the hour and 20 minute hearing.  Luda had warned us that even though everyone in the room is supportive and happy for our adoption application, it was going to be all business and there would be no smiling.  Well the charm and happiness of our children were too much for everyone in the room except for the Judge.  I'm sure he would have cracked a smile too if he wasn't so busy reading the dossier.

After reading our dossier the Judge had some questions for Heather and I.  He asked the following questions:

• Do we have an biological children?
• Why we are adopting?
• Why are we adopting from Ukraine?
• Did we receive the medical condition of the children and are we prepared to provide medical care for them?

He did ask us a few other questions that we don't remember right now because we were nervous during the hearing.  Many of the questions were open ended and very general.  We were well prepared by Luda to answer them though.  Thank goodness for Luda.  Our Judge is new and he does not have a lot of experience with adoption proceedings.  Luda mentioned that the Judge was lucky that she prepared the documents so well for him to move along so smoothly.

After we successfully answered the Judge's questions he asked Mollie if she wanted to be adopted and if she wanted to be adopted by us.  She had earlier written a note that was part of our dossier indicating her desire to be adopted by us and she reiterated that desire to the Judge.  The Judge asked the boy's orphanage representative to interview the boys.  The representative asked the boys who we are.  The boys answered with our names and then with "Mama" and "Papa.'  The boys were then asked if they wanted to live with us in America.  They said yes!

The Judge once again asked the Inspector, the Prosector and the two orphanage representatives for their approval of our adoption.  They said yes again!  The Judge then turned to the two jurors and asked them if they approved.  They said yes!  Finally the Judge also indicated his approval of our adoption.  The proceeding was quickly wrapped up and we adjourned to the waiting area where we received hugs and handshakes from everyone.  We snapped a quick picture of the kids before they left for their orphanages.  We are super excited today for the result of our hearing. 

Luda left this afternoon on the train to head back to Kyiv.  She has been with us for a long time and she was eager to get back to her apartment.  She will be back the Monday before the end of our ten day waiting period to run down some loose ends.  The end is near and soon we'll be flying back to the States.

Heather and I had a nice celebratory lunch at the Flamingo.  A Greek salad and a ceasar salad for starters followed by marinated beef skewers and mashed potatoes for each of us filled our growling stomachs.  We took the afternoon off and we will start fresh tomorrow with our weekend visiting routine.

While we were waiting for court to start, the boy's orphanage representative told us a funny story from the orphanage.  One of the boys in Aidan and Callan's groupa asked her to find him a "Big Papa" like Aidan and Callan's.  I think that either qualifies me as a rap star or a proud Papa.  The representative told the boy that she would try to find him a "Big Papa."  If there are any "Big Papas" out there, there is boy in Simferopol waiting to be adopted.  Along those lines, earlier in the week I took pictures of 24 other children at the boys' orphanage for their annual picture update.  There are a lot of very nice children in this orphanage.  I don't know what their availability for international adoption is but they need good homes. 

That's about it for today.  Heather and I are very excited for our new journey in our lives as Mama and Papa to Mollie, Aidan and Callan.  We can't wait to get them home to our house and to introduce them to our families.  Aunt Kristen and Uncle Jason are preparing the best bedrooms imaginable for the boys and for Mollie at home.  We can't wait to see how they turn out. 

Dopobachenya