Last week we flew to Russia for a few days. Literally a few days - I am not kidding. We had a court date to legalize our adoption of our son. We prepared the night before for approx. 2 hours. We were told what would happen, in what order, prepared our speeches and ran through possible questions. At the time, the possible questions was freaking us out. You had to be so sure to answer the question properly and concisely without saying too much. You are not asked to lie or not say this or that, but you really had to take the child's interest with how you answer. Most importantly, answer the question and don't ramble on about nonsense. Some possible questions are: how would you discipline your child, how much did the adoption cost, what experience you have with children, why you choose to adopt and why you picked Russia.
After the training, my wife and talked and expressed our concerns about answering questions poorly. We just told each other to take one's time and if one party feels overwhelmed to pass the question on. Important point to know - you are allowed to say " my wife/husband can better answer this question" and then have the other person answer. We didn't have to use this tactic, but it's something to keep in your back pocket.
The morning of court is stressful. You are certainly nervous about what is to happen, but another part of you realizes you are closer then you have ever been. All these months and weeks of waiting and here you are. In court there was the judge, his assistant or someone who writes things down, prosecutor, your translator, adoption representative, social worker from the home and social worker from the department of education (they would've monitored your visits with your child at the home). Everyone introduces themselves and the judge then proceeds to discuss the petition. Each prospective parent says their speech. Then the other parties speak. Both the social workers will discuss the history of the child and also the interactions between you as parents with the child. Our social workers were always supportive of us and said some nice things.
Then it's question time. We weren't asked too many questions. We were asked about our finances, our dog, the child's age (since he was a few months older than our acceptable date on our home study), who will stay home with the child and the length of the leave. That's all I remember and it was only a few days ago.
Next step the judge goes through each document of your package which includes all the crazy amount of paperwork you completed over the last several months. All notarized of course. Side note: Russians like having every document notarized.
Then the prosecutor will provide their recommendation and the judge will recess to make his/her decision.
The wait was really short, I would say maybe 10 minutes. It didn't feel long and I felt confident the result would be favourable. We are then asked back to court. The judge reads off this sheet. He talks about basic regarding the case. I honestly don't remember and as he continues to talk my mind goes elsewhere. I think to myself what if he says no? Will I be able to control myself? Will I lunge at home, how would I react? Before I can get into thinking this way the judge then says we are granted custody and accepts the items we wanted in our petition, such as changing his name and place of birth.
We are his parents. We now must wait the standard 30 days waiting period and then we can bring him home. So excited!!!
