Court (day what I don't know)

Today was our day in court.  Everybody gets their day in court right?  Pouring rain today for the first time since we came to Mariupol – we’ll take that as a good sign.  Okay so we had the same prosecutor as the Gardiners but not the same experience.  It went very well.  We did have the same questioning about Becky’s income or lack thereof and how she would be able to work (I guess assuming that I am not around).  While I think they understood that it was good that she could stay at home it has become very important to show some sort of documented history of work and income.  Our interpreter was on the other side of me from Becky so I missed part of what was said during the three hours so I just leaned into Sergei and tried to listen for Russian words that I knew (like two of them).

The jurors sit at the bench with the judge which I didn’t pick up on at first.  The translator was using ‘guy’ to describe everyone so I also wasn’t sure at first who the prosecutor was – because she was in fact so easy going in her questioning I thought that she was an advocate for the orphanage.  It didn’t help that she was also sitting with the psychologist and Oksana from the orphanage.  If I knew more Russian I would probably have figured this all out a little quicker.

Our translator (Dennis) told us that our defender (is that right?  Yeah I should know) Alexander was the main reason that the hearing went so well.  Alexander made sure that Becky was prepared to speak on the subject of income with the judge.  From what Alexander told Dennis the judge was as much interested in the subject as the prosecutor had been with the Gardiners.

Sergei was questioned by the judge as well and with good questions.  About his past care, his family in Ukraine, his isolation from that history should he agree to move the US, and about Max as well.  I imagine it was a very hard day for my son as it was hard for us and our task was much easier as we only had to answer the court’s concerns about our ability to care for our sons.

So once the hearing was completed and I was allowed to say my few words in Russian about my boys we moved to another room on the same floor to await the verdict.  This room had a more old style official feel to it.  There were three chairs at the front with high wood backs carved with the Soviet hammer and sickle and then a center banister pedestal.  We were joined by both attorneys and the prosecutor asked us some additional questions.  In asking these additional questions of us we discovered that a family had adopted three children form the orphanage five years ago and that now (get this) had petitioned the same court in Mariupol to return all three of their children.  The prosecutor was asking us if we knew why in the world the parents would do this.  We had to side with her on this – no idea why they would take such outrageous action.  She asked if we would look into it for her once back in the US and email her with anything helpful that we might find.  She also asked us to reach out to her if there were any difficulties in completing our adoption.  She really is trying to find any avenue out there that will help her in this case.  I’m sure Sergei loved hearing about all this.

We also have the email of Alexander and we will get to Skype with him when back home.  Becky can express love and gratitude better than anyone with a smile and a hug and well Alexander it turns out is a grandfather – those two hit it off nicely in the hallway after the hearing (yes they were both tearing up just a bit).

Back in came the judge, we all stood, he read from the court documents, told our Sergei to be good, and said we were approved.  So here we are after all of this time right where we had hoped to be - thank you to everyone today from the judge on down for your care with these boys.

And that is how we roll forty days from the Resurrection.