Shana and Larry go to Court

A prosecutor and a seasoned homicide detective go to court. You'd think it would be rountine. However, the prosecutor is Shana and the detective is Larry. Of course there are funny stories. Here are ours.

Before I go much further, I'll say that everything went well and our final court date is Wednesday, January 14th at 10:30am. We are thrilled. By my calculations, Adam will be home just before or just after his first birthday!!!!!

Okay, now on to the funny stories. Our court time is 4pm. We are picked up at 3:40. We are ready a bit early, both dressed in our regular court attire ... suits. We get to the courthouse (just a few minutes away). We are about to walk into the building and Olesya, our interpreter, asks, "do you both have your passports?" Now, I have been saying for 6 weeks that we need to have them on us at all time. Who leaves their passport in the room? That's right ... me! Oops. Good thing our driver is still there. He runs me back to the hotel and I get it. Got back to the courthouse with 2 minutes to spare. Nothing like timing!

We go into the judge's chambers, which is where the "hearing" is held. Larry, Olesya and I sit on a bench on the far wall of the chambers. The director of the baby house, Dr. Kay, sits on another bench along with someone from the Department of Education. This woman was also at the baby house when we first met Adam. Behind a desk is a male. No coat, no robe. He is fairly young and wearing a shirt and tie. At the table in front of his desk is a young woman dressed in a uniform/suit.

I ask Olesya if that's the prosecutor (meaning the woman at the table). She says yes. I ask her this because sometimes the prosecutor is at the pre-court and sometimes s/he isn't. Larry assumes that the judge is the prosecutor. We go through the "hearing" where we are asked some questions ... why don't we want to adopt from America, are we concerned that Adam won't look like us, when did we get here and why did we choose Adam. He answered the questions and we were given our final court date. We then go to the lobby to wait for the notices for our next hearing (like we can read them ... they're in Russian). Larry is standing there holding his jacket. I ask him why? He says why put on his jacket if he just has to take it off in a few minutes. I asked him what he was talking about and he said that we still had to see the judge! I laughed and said we just did. He was so confused that he didn't realize it was all over. Talk about anti-climactic!

Anyway, we are on our way. We come home in three days and can't wait! We have our last visit with Adam tomorrow and are very sad about that, but it is part of the process and is another milestone in obtaining our ultimate goal ... our son Adam!