Hip-Hip-Hooray!

Court is over and we are officially mom and dad or as they say it in Russia, mama and papa! We first went to court yesterday and waited for the judge to show up. She finally did at around 10:15AM. We went into the court room and waited for the judge to begin the proceeding and eventually she did so at 10:35.AM Our hearing was now in session.

It began easily enough with Jess and I having to provide our identification information. Afterwards, she announced the case and then it was my turn to read our three-page statement. Everything was going fine until she began her questions after I read the statement. Did I say she ask questions? I meant to say "began to grill me"! First, the judge was wondering how in the world our house could be worth $153,000 yet our translated financial statements shows we owed the same amount. I explained that there must have been an error during the translation of the documents. The judge replied that our statements showed we still owed $153,000. I explained again that this was clearly an error and that we only owed around $75,000. She reverted back to the financial statement. This went back and forth a few rounds before she finally decided to move on.

Oh how we only wished she would have stayed on the subject of what we owe on our house because it got worse when she began questioning me about my sister Vicki and her religion. I should mention that as part of our homestudy, we talk about our family members, including what they do. That portion of our homestudy included information about Vicki recently completing her degree to become a minister. We had been forewarned that this particular judge believed that any religion that hasn’t been around for ten thousand years is northing but a cult. So of coarse the judge asked what religion my sister was practicing. Let the grilling begin! I got grilled for the next 15 minutes. She must have asked me ten different times what religion "this United Church of Christ was?". Each time I answered that as far as I knew the United Church of Christ was not only the church but the religion. I tried explaining that it was Christianity but the judge would only respond by saying she never heard of it. This literally went back and forth for fifteen minutes. The last time she all of a sudden said she remembered "this United Church of Christ" and knows America has over 4,000 different religions and this one is "a farce" and "nothing but a cult". She carried on and on about it until I finally said that my sister is a grown adult and that her religion had no bearing on ours. The judge knew we are Roman Catholic. I told her my sister made her own decisions and that Jess and I are Catholic. Just like that, she let up. Afterwards we were told the judge isn’t a religious person at all but is very anti-Protestant. It really was an unbelievable charade!

We continued with the hearing until around 11:40AM. The judge took a recess to return to her chambers to make a decision. After the break, she came back and we finally got the news we've so long been waiting to hear. The judge said she approved of the adoption! We were so overcome as she continued reading. Additionally, she waived the 10-day waiting period so the adoption went into "immediate full-legal effect! To say we were relieved would be such an understatement.

We quickly left court and began our six hour paper chase. First we stopped at some other governmental office where we obtained birth certificates along with adoption certificates with Roman and Sergei’s new names. Next we went to the registration office to have Roman and Sergei officially removed from the Russian Adoption Database. Afterwards, we went to another office to apply for their Russian Passports. Once we get those back today, we're free to take them to Moscow to complete paperwork from the US side of things.

As for now, we are off to see the boys for the first time since court. (They still haven’t heard the news yet!)