Court Day

We had court first thing this morning and the judge has granted our application to adopt Hannah Alina!! The court is a very serious and official affair, but none of the questions were too difficult and the whole process was over in about 15 minutes. In court we received support from the orphanage director, Hannah’s pediatrician and the person who conducted the interview last week from the Ministry of Education. There were 3 other families with us and we were the last to go in for our case. Ours was the easiest (at least that is what our translator told us). We then waited and they brought back in all 4 families and the judge read his decision for each case. We were first and all I could understand were our names and then Hannah Alina. It was very exciting. I almost started crying but held it together until we came out of court and I saw Chris (another adoptive mom with us) crying and then I lost it too! We are so happy!!! This is a huge step in the adoption process, but of course, there’s still more….Now we must wait for 15 days for the order to become binding and then travel back to Almaty to pick up our baby girl.

After court, we headed back to the baby house but Hannah was already down for her nap. So we just waited there for about an hour to have our party with the orphanage pediatricians. This is a custom of the Maluka house and we had meats, cheeses, breads and cake (all furnished by us through our translator, Olga). Olga did a great job organizing everything, I hope we’ve mentioned before, but Olga has done a fantastic job during our three weeks. We also had wine for a toast and we all went around and said nice things about Hannah and the great care she’s receiving. We asked Hannah’s pediatrician if she had ever visited the US, and she has visited Washington D.C. Funny enough, one of her most favorite things about the trip were the roads (and the lack of potholes!).

We were also able to give the director all of the donations from the American Women’s Club of Amsterdam and from our friends. The director was very grateful and we know everything will go to good use. In total we had six large bags packed with various baby clothes and one bag with various medical supplies.

We went back to visit Banana this afternoon. She was in a great mood all afternoon! She must have known it was a special day! After our visit, we had a celebration at our apts. for the families that went to court today! And now bed! A long day! Sorry again, no pictures and we're too tired to try the 20 times we tried yesterday. We'll keep at it tomorrow.