And the judge said........

YES!!!

 

It was all in all a short session, we started about 10:15AM, present were myself, my coordinator (who was translating for me), my lawyer, Dr. Lud from the BH, the woman from the Ministry of Education, the Prosecutor, another woman who I think was like the minute taker, Ciera and Irina, who sat in the back with Ciera.

 

My lawyer spoke, then the Dr, then the woman from the Ministry (both of whom supported the adoption), then I spoke.  I made it through without crying, I started to choke up on my last words of "over the past weeks Ciera and I have grown to love her very much and we ask that you grant the petition for adoption".  The Prosecutor then spoke, then she asked me a few questions.  The judge glanced up a few times and he had a few questions for the Dr., but then he all of a sudden stood up (we then followed) and then he walked out.  Ciera came up and sat with me and we all just hung out for about 10 minutes when the judge walked back in.  Ciera stood with me, we stood while he read his decision.   It is a bit nerve wracking as he leaves the final words to the end, but I heard "change the name to…" and I knew we were a go.   Then he gets up and walks out again.  I said to Ciera "the judge said yes" and I had tears in my eyes.  We all hurried to get out then as the next hearing was in 15 minutes, I thanked everyone on my way out and then we headed back to the BH, just after 11:00

 

So now I will start at the beginning of our day, we were up earlier as we had to be at the BH to get picked up.  At 8:30 our doorbell rings and my first thought was "oh c&%p….is our clock wrong?", but it was Irina (our friend the cook) saying "catastrophe", apparently the new faucet in the kitchen was leaking into the apartment downstairs, so she called someone to fix it and then tells me she is going home and for me to let hime when he gets here.  I remind her we are leaving at nine and will he be here in 20 minutes? She decided no he would not so she saw us out the door!   As it is so muddy out we wore out boots over to the BH and had our shoes in a bag, we changed them at the BH.  This freaked a few people out when they saw our boots by the door when they knew we should be at court!  We waited for our coordinator, the Dr was in the van then we were off to pick up Irina and the Ministry lady and off to the court house.  The other Dr at the BH saw us waiting at the BH and she smiled at us and gave us a thumbs up!  I dropped our bag upstairs in Room 4 and the caretakers also were all smiles as I left.  Everyone here is so supportive and they truly truly want these babies to find their forever homes.   

 

When we got back to the BH, we did pictures we just the 3 of us, with our coordinator, with Irina.   Then I gave Mr. Baby some juice and put her down for her nap.  We came home for lunch, changed and had our last lunch with our friends from Labrador (they will not be eating with us tomorrow as they have other plans).  As Ciera will not be here when I take Mr. Baby from the BH, we decided to take cake and cookies to the caretakers today.  So I ran out and got a cake and cookies, Ciera was so excited to have tea with them, but apparently they don't do it that way anymore, they just have the tea party by themselves later.  Ciera was disappointed as she really wanted the cake so the caretaker J cut her a piece to eat then.

 

We had a good afternoon, Mr. Baby was again in fine form, she is really working on pulling herself up and the caretaker J was trying to show her how to move from side to side (side stepping) and I was saying "nyet, nyet, I don't want her walking yet, she's not even 10 months!!!".  She laughed but I hope she got my point, I don't want to be back in 4 weeks to see that she is walking.  I do think she will be walking shortly thereafter though!!

 

This evening we took our last walk through the park to downtown, we had to head to the bazaar to get another duffle bag to take home!  Then we made some last purchases at the Ramstore and met our friends from Washington for dinner at Assorti.  The kids went to Babylon  to the play part, so while P kept an eye on them, M and I went to Cafelatte (I think that's what it's called) for very good tea and some most delicious cake!  Ciera then turned in her tickets at Babylon for her prize (she was disappointed that she only had 104 and not the 1800 needed for the boxing gloves!), but I totally talked up the notebook and pen and she's ok with it now.

 

There is a huge fire somewhere in the city, we saw the smoke when walking downtown and when we walked out of the mall the air was all smokey and you can smell it, I hope no one has been injured.

 

Tomorrow will be a bittersweet day, I think I will cry tonight just to try and get it out of my system.  I've been on the verge of tears all day, just thinking about leaving.  After 7 weeks in a place it truly does feel like home, not only am I leaving my youngest daughter behind, I am leaving some wonderful people who have become like family to us.   From our other Canadian friends, our USA friends, Irina (our wonderful cook), Irina (our translator) and all the wonderful people who work at the babyhouse.  I know I will be back in 4'ish weeks but still it's going to be so hard putting her in her crib tomorrow afternoon.  Ciera won't be back for a few years so she will say her goodbyes tomorrow.

 

My sister called tonight just after we got in at 9:15 to give me heck for not emailing or posting about how court went…hey we were too busy celebrating!!!  Ciera was still up so she wanted to talk to Auntie Dada, her face shone and she smiled the whole time she talked to her, then as she went to bed she started to cry "I want to see Auntie Dada", "you will baby in 2 days".  So I think I made the right call in not having her talk to anyone from home, I know initially I did want to, but with our stay here being prolonged I think it would have pointed out more to her what she missed.

 

Funny though, I asked Ciera tonight what she liked most about being here, and her answer was……Babylon (the arcade/play place)!  I said "really? It wasn't meeting your sister?" "yeah that too".  Life is so simple when you are 5!!!

 

We are being picked up somewhere around 9:00 tomorrow night so I'll have a chance to post before we leave.  Ok, I need to go pack more now and then get some sleep, it's going to be a loooooong trip home.

 

Today's pictures:

-       Ciera and I outside the courthouse, after the judgement!

-       My beautiful sleeping little daughter!

-       Our final picture of City Park for this trip.