One Year Ago Today, A Day in Court

Finally we were set for our day in court. Now she would finally be ours and we could officially start our 10 day waiting period. Yana arrived in town very early in the morning. I brought a dress to wear and wore my new boots with it, very Ukranian and Yana approved. Jon drug a suit along for this occasion. Yana had all the details arrainged with rides to the courthouse for us and for the orphanage officials who were testifying at the hearing. Yana went over some questions we would likely be asked and made sure our answers were short and to the point. We weren't too nervous because we hadn't heard of anyone being refused by the time they made it to court. We had to wait for a while in a hallway before going into the court room. It was small and similar to a typical American hearing room. There was a judge, a "prosecutor", and some witnesses. The entire procedure was in Ukranian and Yana sat next to us and translated everything. At this time they just started tape recording the court proceedings so the judge read through every single document in our dossier. It was very long, a couple of hours. The judge looked at our family picture book that we brought, and he commented that Deanna looked like our family. They had a short recess and then came back into the room. He said a few things in Ukranian and then left the room. We said "what happened?" and Yana said that he granted our petition and it was over. Several of the people in the court room came over and congratulated us. They now seemed much friendlier! After this experience we went out for a celebratory lunch with Yana. We went to an interesting little restaurant and we were the only ones there. We had good food, and of course Vodka! The waitress took our picture in front of the fireplace, and insisted we crouch down in front of it (see odd picture). It was such a relief to finally begin the waiting period. Even though she was officially ours, we still didn't have possession.