Thursday – Court Date Finally Arrives!

This morning Michael and I had a court appointment at 10am. We were asked to meet our interpreter and agency rep in the lobby at 9am. We were both very quiet this morning before we went to court and pretty quiet before court began. Translation: While we had both been told that this Judge has not turned anyone down, we were still very nervous to speak in front of her and to respond to any questions she or the prosecutor may have had.

Michael had the longer speaking part of the two of us. He had to cover much more territory than I did (Whew!) and it took about 30 minutes for the Judge to be satisfied with Michaels “presentation”. She is very thorough and while our story is pretty compatible with adoption, she still ALWAYS asks additional questions, sometimes that same question over and over again.

Then it was onto me and I spoke for about 20 minutes. I tried to give more detail to the Judge based on her questions to Michael. She did ask me a few additional questions after I spoke, but the prosecutor did not have any questions. The rep for the city that Drew is from did ask one question, but all were easy and info I knew.

After Michael and I finished speaking, the Judge leaves the courtroom to make her final decision; will she grant custody to us and will she waive the 10 day waiting period.

The Judge returned within about 5 minutes, and the verdict was…

WE HAVE BEEN GRANTED CUSTODY OF KIRILL VLADAMIRAVICH POLYAKOV and the 10 day waiting period has been waived!

We’re very excited and look forward to picking up Drew tomorrow! There are two families that have already brought home two girls and tomorrow we and another couple will bring home two boys, so we’ll have lots of fun play dates before we leave NN and we’ll probably all get together in Moscow as well.

More to come…