After the court hearing

I'm sure there are many of you who have been checking this throughout the night to find a report and here it is. Overall, even though an adoption did not get approved it was NOT a totally bad experience. Let me explain. First of all, we aren't denied – we have another court hearing scheduled for January 30^th at 10am. We need to have our medicals done here in IRK and we need to get a number of updated or new documents from the USA. The biggest issue right now is that the judge doesn't understand the relationship between Bethany Christian Services (our homestudy agency) and Nightlight Christian Services (our overviewing agency who is accredited to work in Russia). She doesn't know why it's not just Nightlight for home study, etc. Alex tried to explain but we need to get better documentation on this and get letters from the State of Wisconsin to say they're aware of this. She doesn't want Nathan to get forgotten due to the different states involved. I've already emailed the list off.

So we get to court for our 10am appointment and waited in the courtroom. (My hair looked very nice due to the flat iron Kathy left for me to use!) The court room is very small and has the cage for criminal trials in there also. It was not nearly as formal or imposing as I expected it to be – even the judge's seat was on the same level as us, not elevated like in the USA. We were prepared for the judge and she really was quite like I expected – she's of Asian descent, wears glasses, never really changes her expression but wasn't as scary as I thought. Brian said she didn't really like direct eye contact either, she'd often look away when he looked at her. So anyway, we all state who were are, we say we don't speak Russian and need an interpreter and Olga (works with Alex) was our interpreter. She did well – lots of talking. When we first came in the room the window was open and it was a little chilly but not too bad. Before we started that window was closed and by the end of the 3 hours it was stifling in there!

So we were prepared that I would talk first and then Brian would present – and he could pick up some of the items he might get asked from my presentation. But for some unknown reason (Alex doesn't even know why) she called on Brian to go first and he got grilled with lots of questions he really didn't know the answers to or wasn't prepared enough with answers. For the most part he did really, really well – there are only a few I said later what she was looking for. I think he, and later I, were so nervous we were reading things into questions and for awhile it was confusing if they were asking us questions about Nathan or JJ and we really need to clarify those for next time. There were lots of mentions of Joshua – what he is like, how he does in school, how are we involved in his education, what does he think about a sibling, will they sleep in the same room, some questions about his adoption… his ears were probably ringing!

We did feel all the prayers – I really was not nervous after the first few minutes and really just more observant on what was happening. The hearing was postponed until the 10-days we asked for a little after 1pm. The time had gone fast. I was so hot and thirsty that I needed something to drink (just water, not vodka!) Alex, Olga, Brian and I went to a place near the courthouse – they had an English menu – and we downed some water and cokes. Nice lunch. We went over what the judge all wants for the next hearing so that I could get a handle on it to request from our agency. The Holmes family and their facilitator met us at the restaurant – we are working on doing our medicals together so they appear the same as we're both going after the same thing right now. It was nice to meet them in person finally! So after lunch we all headed out to get some of our medicals done – we already have the drug & alcohol specialist, the psychiatrist and I think one other done. Tomorrow we have three meetings (the oncologist had our names in the system from last time!) and then the final two will be done on Wednesday I think. But we really have to get the documentation from the USA to make it worthwhile to head back to court on the appointed day. It is doable but will be a lot of work for our wonderful support people in the states!

We finally got back to the apartment around 5:45pm and I made dinner. We've just hung out here again tonight – like we did last night also, never got out for ice cream! We haven't ventured out once yet but really due to no time. Maybe during these next few days. Hey, Kathy or Kirsten, do you know if they sell Clinique product here? I really have to get some face cleaner – the cheap stuff I brought along just isn't cutting it! J

So I know this isn't the report you were hoping for but it's as well as we expected it to be – JJ called just a bit ago asking "how'd it go?" and was very disappointed to hear we don't have Nathan – give him a little extra support today please!

Until later – keep commenting!