Court - Day 1

We made it out alive! Actually, it wasn’t too bad at all. There was a small bit of turmoil about Yana’s birth date however. We learned of it 5 – 10 minutes before the hearing. It appears that she has four different birth dates listed on official documents. Three of them were in May (8th, 15th, and 18th). It seems that these were all estimated birth dates based on development because there were no official birth records that the children’s home could find. The court was able to locate a birth record for her and guess what? Her birth date is in DECEMBER (20th) and not in May at all. This morning she was officially 10 years old. This afternoon she became 9 years old again. It looks like we’ll be having a birthday party about a week after we get back. Who knew?

The photo is of the courthouse. It’s not the best photo however. We took it from inside the van since Mark has this propensity for getting nearly arrested if he tries to use a camera in Russia. He’s a threat to national security in case you were wondering.

Today’s court hearing was the closed, preliminary hearing where the judge gathers data to help her with the court’s decision about the adoption. It started with formalities. We all had to stand when she entered the room and every time we spoke. There was a reading of the hearing’s purpose, attendees, etc. Then, the questions started. Mark was the first to be questioned. The questions focused on why we are pursuing adoption in Russia; what problems we were expecting as a result of the children’s’ “diagnoses”; whether we were being overly optimistic about these problems; about our financial stability; whether our biological children would be accepting of the new children or would they bully them; whether I had ever inflicted cruelty or abuse on a child; whether I would use physical punishments; and whether or not the children would be afraid of me because they have never had a father and the mother that they had had been cruel to them. After around 20 – 25 minutes (with me standing the whole time), it was Lisa’s turn to stand and face the court. Her questions focused on why we are seeking to adopt in Russia; whether our biological children would be jealous of having to share us with the new kids; what would she do when problems arose with the new kids; and when, in the future, the new “developmentally delayed” kids fail to live up to the standards set by our “normal” kids, whether we would abandon them. As far as a grilling goes, I think we left feeling more medium-rare than well done. Not too bad.

The social worker also spoke and gave great praise to Beth and Luke based on her observations of earlier this morning. She was in awe of how well our biokids accepted and interacted with our Russian kids. She couldn’t believe that they were able to engage in joint activities (doing some crafts that Lisa brought along) during the interview while the grown-ups were talking. The hearing ended after a few more formalities and we were done in just over an hour. Tomorrow we have the formal hearing at 10:00am and about 60 – 90 minutes later we will legally be a family of six.

After court, the driver took us back to the orphanage for an hour… this time without our translator (who had to do some court paperwork related errands). It was really nice to spend some time alone there as a family. We communicated surprisingly well and had a good time of bonding as a family. We were up in Yana’s group area and she was able to show us 1) her photo album that we gave her in July (she knows each photo very well) and 2) some of her schoolbooks. She has English Class this year and already knows her alphabet and the sounds each letter makes. She enjoyed showing us that she is already able to say quite a few words.

Oh, by the way, we also learned that the kids might have a biological sister or half-sister somewhere. She would probably be around 5 years old… if she exists. There is no paperwork for her and no official records. Apparently the kids told a social worker about a younger sister some time ago, but no one knows who or where she is. We think. We learned about this at the social worker interview and wondered if it would be sprung on us in court (Russian law says you have to adopt all of the known siblings or you get none of them). There was no mention of the other sister in court however and we really don’t know if there is any truth to her existence.

We ate at the new KFC next door for dinner tonight. It wasn’t quite KFC at home, but it was pretty close and the food was good. Both kids ate until they were full… and it cost about 90 rubles less than our old standby of “Fresh Burger”.