We Had Court Today!

We had court today at 4:00 p.m. This time went a lot better than it did when we adopted John Paul! It was much more relaxed. We were both glad of that! JP was the first child that has Down Syndrome to be adopted from that region and they did not understand why we wanted to adopt a child with such a condition during his court. We could not get them understand it at all. Since his adoption two other families have been through the same court to adopt children with Down Syndrome. We also took pictures of John Paul since he has been home to show them. In addition to his pictures, I also brought pictures of Dasha from when we were just over here. I wanted them to see her sweet little face as well. :) They (the judge and jury) seemed very interested in looking at them. The judge looked at them twice and smiled both times. We had the same judge and jury as last time. They remembered us. :)

They didn't ask us a whole lot. Mostly they just wanted to know the answers to the basic questions, like do we support our application for adoption of Dasha, etc. The judge asked me if it was difficult to care for such a child. I was happy to get that opportunity. :) I told her, no not at all. In fact, he is doing really well and becoming quite independent. I was THRILLED to be able to tell her that he has began feeding himself and is also doing really well with toilet training. The judge and lady jury member smiled. The male jury member looked shocked and then smiled. I wondered if it was that he was surprised that he can do those things or that I brought up toilet training in court. lol!! I also told them that he walks on his own now very well. She asked if our family accepts him and if they accept that we are going to adopt Dasha too. That was a yes. We are VERY fortunate to have loving and supportive families. She was happy to see pictures of John Paul playing with my nephew Ethan. She smiled the most at those pictures. She asked if they play together and if nephew accepts him. That was a yes too. :) It really touched my heart! Ethan is a soft spot for me anyway. I love that little guy too.

The judge said that when we came to adopt in the summer that she could not understand why we would want a child with such a condition. She said that she now understands it is because we love them and want to help them. I think the pictures of John Paul and Dasha showed more than our words could ever express. How could you not love these children, they are so beautiful and kind hearted. :)

As much as I have been upset that we couldn't bring Dasha home in July with John Paul, today it all sort of made sense. Maybe it was all God's way of raising awareness for children with Down Syndrome. Maybe it was so they could see for themselves and hear how children with Down Syndrome thrive when they are given love and a family. It was an amazing feeling to see their smiles over John Paul and to hear in the words they were saying that some awareness was raised. I would not have chosen to make Dasha wait 6 months longer to come home, but I am very thankful that we were given this awesome opportunity to share John Paul's progress with the court. What an awesome day!

Oh, and they told us congratulations! There is one minor issue though. The piece of paper from Dasha's birth town stating that her mother's rights had been terminated did not come through. We are not sure why and we know for a fact that she is clear for adoption. Tomorrow we have a driver going to Kerch to pick up the paper and he will bring it back to court. The judge was going to postpone our court until Monday once she realized that the paper was missing. Thank God for Igor (our facilitator). He told her Rick already had train and plane tickets out for tomorrow and would miss his train and flight and talked her into proceeding. She decided to go ahead, but the paper must be brought to her tomorrow. Please pray everything goes okay tomorrow in Kerch and the paper is produced! It is costing us $200 to send the driver there. Ouch! Especially since I have to pay it again when we go back to Kerch to pick up her birth certificate after the 10 day wait. We are really on a time crunch to get me and Dasha out of here by Feb. 4th! Please pray that we get her visa and out of here by then. I did not buy adoption rate tickets this round because I thought I could fairly accurately predict when we would leave. The adoption tickets would have been a whole lot more expensive and I was nervous to spend so much. We just decided to take our chances. I allowed 2 extra days to get out by on the departure date (judging from how long it took last time). The problem is that they passed a new law in December about the birth certificates. You can no longer get them in the same day. You have to wait 2 to 3 days. So we are looking at making our flights either on the exact day or missing them by a day. If I have to change the departure date then it is going to cost me a minimum of $500 just to change the date, then I will have to pay the fair difference for both of our tickets. I really don't want or need to do that! Please just pray that we will get everything done and wrapped up by Feb. 3rd so Dasha and I can leave on the 4th at 6:45 a.m.! Thank you so much!!!

This is pretty neat too! Today is the traditional Ukrainian New Year's Day! This is based off of the Julian calendar. There were fireworks outside last night for New Year's Eve. Anyway, I thought that it is amazing that Dasha became ours (minus the dreaded 10 day wait) on the first day of her New Year! A new start for a new year! I am so thankful to God today for our little girl, and of course our little John Paul too!! John Paul has new pics on his blog.