Court Day

4/24/02

We are both up by 8 in the morning. Showering was next to impossible. The water in the tub is brown, so we both settle on sponge baths, but have to wash our hair in this stuff..yuk! We ate a breakfast consisting of pastry we bought yesterday. Tea was delivered to the room. The pasrty was dry and tasteless. We havenothing to bo but sit on the beds and wait for a knock on the door telling us it was time to go. Inna arrived at 9:30am, and we headed for the courthouse. We have a 10am court appointment.

The hearing was closed, but formal. Those included were the Judge, translator, representitive of the orphanage, representitive of the Ministry of Education, the prosecuter and the court reporter, who noted everything by hand. We were asked questions like our name, address, places of employment, why we wanted to adopt, how the boys felt about the adoption, will they help to raise Marinaand how we planned to communicate with her. At 11:15am, it was announced that she was ours and the 10 day waiting period was waived...Praise God!!

We then went to our usual place for lunch, then back to the hotel room to wait again while others take care of the paperwork. The driver will take Marina to have her passport picture taken. Inna had to take our passports because Tatiana still has posession of our appostilled documents needed to apply for the passport. They will ask the court to issue an order to give us our documentsback, but unfortunately, noone knows where Tatiana is. We are supposed to leave at 2pm to go to the office of vital records.

At 4pm, Inna knocks on the door saying we had to go NOW..bring nothing. We went to the office of vital records and got Marinas adoption certificate and new birth certificate, that listed us as her parents. We requested an extra copy of her documents, but the translator would not request this for us. Then back to the hotel and wait until 6:30 to go get something to eat, then back to the hotel for the night.

I feel we should be very happy, but we are both feeling a bit depressed. We are in our room more than out. We are not allowed to see Marina today.

Kevin, our family coordinator called and was suprised that Marina was not with us. We left for supper after Kevins call, back to the usual place and the same food. We will leave at 9am to go to the passport office

4/25/02

We left the hotel at 10am and went to breakfast. At 11am, we headed to the passport office. Kevin went in with our driver and Renata, I waited in the car with Inna, although she just pulled out a book and read while they were there,a nds wouldnot talk to me. After about 30 minutes, Kevin and the others came out. The plan: pick Marina up at the orphanage at 2pm, get plane tickets to fly to Moscow tonight. If tickets are not available, we will take the train to Moscow instead. We will go to the Embassy to get her Visa tomorrow, then head for home on Saturday.