Reflections on Trip Two (court trip)

I think jet lag has officially consumed me and the fact that I just had a whirlwind trip around the world and back in four days is starting to suck my will to live this evening. It's either that or mowing the yard tonight after work that did it. Speaking of work, I was planning on working up until my "due date" (ha ha, I crack myself up) on Tuesday but I'm starting to get that "am I going to get it all done in time" feeling and I'm thinking I'll work Monday but take Tuesday off so I can be ready for my 6:00 a.m. flight on Wednesday morning. I am glad we came back home to wait out our 10 days because the time is FLYING by right now. Before a trip to Russia I don't worry about not getting everything done because I know when I get home, I can finish up stuff. But this time is different. This time little man will be with us and my world will be all about him so I need to make sure everything is done before I leave on Wednesday.


I wanted to address a few things for the other PAP's out there that are going through this process. First of all, court. The apprehension of going to court in a foreign land was more stressful than court actually was. I really worried about court and worried that it would go okay and we would say the right things. Now that I look back on it, I really worried needlessly. Kind of like when I stressed and stressed about getting things apostilled only to find out later that apostilling is really not a big deal. Back to court...our agency rep "N" really prepared us well for court. She told us exactly what would happen, the order it would happen, the possible things the judge, prosecutor and social worker from Artem's baby home could say, and what we needed to say.


When we walked in to court we had to lay our passports and pictures on the judge's bench. We were not told specifically what pictures to bring but had heard that they like to see pictures of the three of you. Once we got there, N told us they want at least 3 pictures of the 3 of us together and a couple pictures of father and child. Luckily we had them in our brag book and gave the judge those pictures along with some pictures of Artem's nursery since those were not in our dossier since his room was still a guest room back then. As court began, the judge looked at the pictures and then passed them to the prosecutor and court reporter. They looked at them and commented in Russian about them. The judge took one of them of the 3 of us and kept it for our file and gave the rest back after court.


We both had to give a speech although Randy's was longer since Russia is still a male dominated society according to the courts and my statement had to be along the lines of "Your Honor, I fully support my husband's decision to adopt..." Randy's speech included things like, "we are aware of Artem's medical report, we have seen Artem X amount of times, each visit he warmed up to us more and more, our friends and family fully support our decision to adopt, we make X amount of money per year and feel like we can adequately care for Artem, our house is 2400 sq feet and we live in a nice, quiet neighborhood, my wife will make an excellent mother because of..." Randy's speech lasted about 4-5 minutes with pauses along the way for N to translate what Randy was saying. When N translated about how large our house was all the Russians started oohing and ahhing. I didn't understand why, our house isn't that big but afterwards we found out N had accidently given them the sq footage in meters and our house ended up being 10,000 sq feet, no wonder they were amazed. The pauses for translation worked out really good because both of us had our speeches written out in bullet form on paper and it gave us a chance to look at what we wanted to say next while N was translating. Even though N is translating you have to look at the judge when you speak. Afterwards, I gave my speech which was much shorter and included "I will be a good mom because..., I will not be going back to work and will care for Artem full time with no daycare, my husband will help me care for Artem after work and on weekends, we chose Russia because..." After that the social worker said some things about Artem. She told the judge why he came to the baby home, how many, if any Russian families had looked at him for possible adoption, and how our visits went when we were there. The judge then listed off some paperwork that she had in our file (which I clearly heard, "paperwork from US Embassy" which is our 171H!!) and asked the social worker for another document which the social worker provided. The prosecutor who looked all of 21 had the opportunity to ask us questions but did not ask any and then the judge had the opportunity to ask questions but did not ask any. The judge left the bench to "deliberate" for about 5 minutes. She came back with a typed piece of paper in her hand and gave her verdict. It was all done in about 40 minutes. N said Randy and I gave great speeches b/c judges usually have questions but we included enough in our speeches that she didn't have anything to ask. The judge never smiled once, the prosecutor smiled when she looked at the pictures.


The court room is laid out in a U shape with the judge being the bottom of the U and the social worker, prosecutor, and court reporter on one side facing us, and myself, N, and Randy on the other side. There is a podium in the middle but you don't use it. You just stand at your spot and give your speech.


I was really worried about crying in the court room. I did get a little teary eyed when Randy was giving his speech and was talking about me and why I would be a good mother. I really started getting teary eyed when I was giving my speech and was concluding with telling the judge something along the lines of "some babies are born from their mother's tummy while other babies are born from their mother's hearts and Artem was born in my heart". The tears started after that but I was done with my speech at that point and looked down at the ground and was able to collect myself while the prosecutor spoke.



So the point of this long story...court was not that bad after all and your translator will meet with you and prep you well and you will be okay. Just don't kiss the judge! Seriously, we were warned not to do this.


Now for some pictures of our very groovy pad! I was told by my co-workers that they love seeing pictures of Artem but they wanted to see some pictures of Russia too. You asked for it, you got it!



The loft is where we slept and we had to climb the spiral staircase to get to the top. Our refrigerator was covered in ladybug stickers, while the kitchen support pole was covered in disco ball squares. And what goes better with a pink seahorse shower curtain than green bell pepper placemats in the kitchen??



Outside the court house with N, our translator and a picture of the court house.




Some pictures of us on Old Arbat and pictures of Sally and Carlos and Carrie and Michael when we stopped by Novy Arbat on our way to Hard Rock Cafe on Old Arbat.



Finally, the area around Tyverska, including a typical intersection with traffic coming from every direction, overhead power wires for the trolleys and the Pushkin memorial.