She's Ours!

We had court this morning and spent the majority of the rest of the day running around delivering documents here and there. But, yes, she is ours! Court was great. We had the same judge as last year, who remembered us, or at least remembered Drew. She thought I was the daughter being adopted and Masha was the mother!! :) When I stood up she was shocked and we all had a good laugh.

She opened the meeting and had Drew and I introduce ourselves as the applicants. She introduced the prosecutor and court reporter and the officials sitting with her on the stand. Then the social worker, Nadiya (orphanage director), Oxana and another lady from their child care department were present.

She read through a little of our application and stated that everything was in order and asked if there were any objections to our request to adopt from anyone in the court. No one objected so she asked Drew and I why we would want to adopt another child. I opted for Drew to answer first and he did wonderfully. He said, "We hosted both girls and fell in love with them and wanted to adopt both. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get both girls last year, so of course we are here now to adopt our second daughter. We are excited to have Masha as part of our family." He was much more composed than I would have been. After he finished she asked me if I was sure I wanted to be a mother to all of these children. Wasn't I scared??? I told her that Iwas very comfortable with being a mother to the children and she replied that she could see in me that I had the fortitude it takes to care for them.

She asked Masha if she wanted to go to America several times. Every time she brought up a new good reason that Masha could stay in Ukraine but Masha told her every time that she still wanted to come with us and be a part of our family. The judge told her that she needed to be a big help in the home to help ease my responsibilities. I know that she will be. She is a really good girl.

The judge also told us that she wanted us to have patience whenever anyone is rude to us about us adopting. She said there are a lot of people out there that do not understand why we would do this, her included. (Apparently, she thought we would not return after adopting Anastasia. She didn't think we would come back for Masha.) And yet she knows that it is a good thing and she asked that God would bless us in our efforts to be good parents and to raise a good family. She made me cry! I have to admit that right now I feel I will need all the blessings I can get. I know that I couldn't be a good mother if I didn't have divine help and guidance. Everything felt so right in court and it brought all the feelings back reminding me why we decided to do this in the first place.

Somewhere along the way, I had started losing sight of why we adopted and every once in a while I have an experience that reminds me and comforts me. Today was one of those days. I felt the burning inside me that confirmed for me, "This is a good thing. And you will be watched over and guided along the way." Thank heaven for that!

Anyway, back to court...the social worker and child care representative both said they had reviewed the documents and felt everything was in order and that we would be good parents. Then Nadiya talked and told the court all about her feelings that we are good people and that she agreed. She also shared with the court all of the pictures that I had given to her from the families from last year. Nadiay, Oxana and the judge all are trying hard to promote International adoption and our stories are being shared with the media to say, "Here, look, these adoptions are good. These children all look so happy. This is a good thing and we need to remember that there are a lot of good people out there that can help these children and give them families." We are making a difference! Our court turned a little into an adoption promotion rally.

So, in the end, the answer was yes! She is ours. Unfortunately, we won't have the 10-day waiting period waived so our 10 days ends on Easter Sunday and all official offices are closed on Monday for the holiday. So we can't work on the birth certificate until Tuesday, April 6th. Drew leaves next week to head back home...I am so jealous! I will stay here and probably be able to come home between the 10-12th. Sometime that week, which is more than a week earlier than I was originally expecting. So I will only be here for around two weeks alone. I still think that two weeks will feel like an eternity, but at least it's not 3 1/2!

After court we went out to eat with a few of the people involved with our adoption. The social worker, Nadiya, Oxana, Victor, Masha, Drew and I. It was yummy and we enjoyed the company. We also went to the notary and stopped by the orphange for a couple minutes. We had to go to the court to drop off a few more documents again.

Once all of the running of documents was done, we finally headed to the other orphanage in Dnipro to take those children their gifts from their parents in America. So here is the news that most of the people following the blog have been waiting for! I have pictures and will try and post those either tonight or tomorrow morning, so keep posted for those. But, we were able to find Alina (the Hinkson's Alina) at the orphanage and give her your letter. She was so shy, but opened it with Drew's help and then she wrote a short note that I will bring back to you. We found out that Igor and Andre were at a sanitorium a couple of minutes away. We went there and gave them their jerseys. We took pictures of the boys too.

Unfortunately we looked for the Loves' Alina and she was indeed adopted, for which I am so sorry. I am truly sorry that we weren't able to give you good news and hope that you are feeling peace at this time.

That was the end of our day. We will be giving the gifts for the kids at our orphanage on Monday. All of the kids will be back in school then and we will take pictures then as well. I will try and get pictures up right away!