Ups and Downs of Court Day

Day 1/10

I’m gonna apologize now for this being a long entry. There are lots of things about the day we want to remember.

We started out the day with our first webcam session with Brady and Madison. It was great to see them and check in on what has been going on back home. We weren’t but a minute or so into the call when they began pushing each other so that they could be in front of the camera. Gotta love the sibling spats! They started off by telling us that they have been sleeping on our bed and wearing one of Justin’s sweatshirts each night. They were proud to announce that they are going to wear the sweatshirts every day we are gone. We hope they wash them at some point :o) Of course after disconnecting from the chat session we were sad. We still have soooo many days left before returning home.

We spent the morning hanging out with the True Family (Sandy, Ryan, and Bodi) and picking their brains about court. Around noon we decided to go back to the room and reread our homestudy, Blake’s medical and family information, and make a list of notes to have with us in court. We were to be picked up in the lobby around 2:30-2:45 for our 4:00 court session. Well because there was NOTHING else to do, Justin and I began getting ready for court early. We decided to be in the lobby at 2:15 just to be on the safe side – and to get us out of our room! At 2:12 the phone in our room rings. It was Lana, our interpreter. She said, “Heather, there has been a mistake (insert here – heart pounding, lump in throat developing, stomach turning). The judge changed the court time to 2:00 not 4:00. She only told half of the people 2:00. Irina will be there to pick you up in ten minutes. Please be ready!” Well that sure made things interesting. Justin and I prayed together before leaving the room and then headed to the lobby. Sandy took a quick picture of us before court as parents of 2 children and then we got a picture after court as parents of 3 children!

So Irina picked us up and drove like a race car driver into Vladivostock. We had Natalia, the Artem Baby Home director with us in the car. Irina explained that the prosecutor is her friend (cha ching!) and called her at 2:00 and asked where she was. Irina explained that she was driving to pick the director up, that is when she learned that the court time had changed. Oye! When we arrived, Irina dropped us off at the door so that she could park the car. Lana, our interpreter was on her way. So if you can possibly follow the characters of this story… Justin and I are walking into the Primorsky Regional Court with no one that speaks English. We get past the security counter and sit on a bench to wait. It seems as though people are pretty calm and that the time mix-up had been smoothed over. Then the court reporter opens the door to the small court room and motions us in. YIKES! Where is Lana? Where is Irina? Surely they know we can’t understand a word they are saying right?!?! The judge walks in and we all stand. She said something and the prosecutor said “Passports”. So we handed our passports over. Thankfully they didn’t continue until Lana entered the room. She probably arrived about 2 minutes after we had gone in.

Over all the ‘hearing’ wasn’t that bad. It took about 40 minutes and quite a bit of that time was spent with the director of the baby home and the social worker for Artem, Svetlana, speaking to the judge. Justin spoke first. They asked him about 3 questions. I got to answer all of the rest. It was hard to look at the Judge which you can’t understand and then look at the interpreter then speak to the judge who in turn listens to the interpreter. Quite an interesting process.

Some of our questions (Helpful for future adopting parents):

Are biological children prepared for the child?
Why do you want to adopt when you can have children of your own?
Why from Russia?
How did the child react to you?
Does he know you? What does he call you?
Which one of you does the child like better? (They asked me that. A part of me wanted to ask if they were seriously asking that question. But instead, I said that I felt he enjoyed his interactions with Justin more. It seems like he likes having a male influence around)
There was a question about our mortgage and how the economic crisis has affected us.
Who will be the primary caregiver of the child?
What services can we provide for him?
Have we spoken to doctors about his delays?

We left the court room for 2 minutes, went back in and the judge stated that we are the legal parents of the child. After the 10 day waiting period we will be legal guardians. Congratulations. We were very excited at that point. We then got in the car with Lana and began to leave.

Ok, so at this point we were relieved to have that done and over with. We were then waiting to hear whether or not we would get to have Blake with us at the hotel. We knew that Artem has only let one child stay with the parents during the 10 days. But we were hopeful. Irina feels very passionate that this is so important for the families, and now almost all of the baby homes and orphanages allow it. She said she would give it her best shot. So as we are driving to the market, Justin says to Lana that we would have to take her and Irina out to dinner and get some good Chinese food. She turns and looks at us with a sad face and says, “Guys, with what I have to tell you, you will not want to buy us dinner.” (picture big happy balloon being stuck with a needle). She said that Irina just called and we will not be able to have Blake during the 10 days. She said Irina is furious right now and is yelling about it. For future Artem adoptive parents here is what we have learned. We got permission from the baby home director, we got permission from the Ministry of Education, we got permission from the social worker that saw us play with Blake. The decision is up to the Director of the Department of Family Services in Artem city. She is the chief or boss to Svetlana, the social worker. When Irina spoke with her she said no. This made Irina angry. She then spoke with the MOE. The MOE said that they can only suggest and make recommendations but they cannot force the Department of Family Services to allow it. I can’t help but to wonder if this woman has ever seen the children in the orphanages. We know she has never seen us. If only we could speak with her directly and try to connect with her personally. Perhaps bring her flowers, chocolate, perfume…. Just kidding!

So that is the long way of telling you that we will not get to have Blake with us at the hotel. We are very disappointed, but we also knew this would likely be the case. Hopefully we will get to visit him most of the 10 days. It will depend on a number of things. And there aren’t visits over the weekend so we’ll have to find something to pass the time. We do get to go visit today at 3:00. Hopefully today we will get to just spend the whole time playing without interruptions. And we will be having another webcam session with Brady and Madison in a few hours!

Thank you so much for the emails, comments, and prayers. They really help us keep our sanity!

Before court.


After court - proud parents of THREE children!