Surprise!!.................Day 20

We had our court date and Elizabeth is ours!!!!!

Today we woke up to a dreary overcast day. It matched our moods. We were both bummed at the thought that court wouldn’t be until next week. As we were walking around a store, our cell phone started ringing and it was in my jacket which was under my zipped coat. In my struggle to get it out, I hit a button that ended the call. It immediately rang again and it was Misha, telling us that our court date is TODAY at 3:00pm!!!!!! Yeah! Yahoo!! Yippee!!! My heart was going a mile a minute and both of our moods did a 180 degree turn around. I suddenly felt on top of the world. But, we are so nervous I couldn’t eat lunch and Tom only ate a few handfuls of Cheerios. If everything goes according to plan, Elizabeth will officially be our daughter Victoria Elizabeth Marie Hagan. Oh, what a happy day this is turning out to be. As I sit here waiting for our appointment, the sun is now shining and again the day matches our mood :-)

Tamera and Bryan also have a court date today at the same time. It is so great to be able to share every step of this process with them. We are already trying to figure out how soon we’ll be able to go home…maybe by November 16…but I don’t want to jump the gun. Let’s get through the court appointment first…. Tom and I have prayed together for God to lead us and guide us in the answers we give the judge and also for God to be with the judge as he makes his decision. Our God is an awesome God and He hasn’t let us down yet!!!

Stay tuned for the rest of the story to be told after our court appointment….

We leave for out appointment a few minutes late. We are on our way when…..a flat tire!! (of all times to have a flat tire, it would happen on our way to the most important appointment of our lives!) Tom and Maxium (the driver) have the tire changed in less than 10 minutes and we are on our way. We have no idea where the court house is, so we are Maxium’s mercy to get us where we need to go. Soon we pull up in front of an apartment building and Maxium says “5 minutes” and he runs behind the building. By this time it is 2:40 and we are starting to get nervous if we’ll make it to court by 3pm. Soon Maxium is running back with 2 spare tires, he throws them into the trunk, we do a U turn, and we’re off again. At 2:50 we arrive at the court house. A very old looking building and we stand outside with Vadim while he tells us what to expect when we go to court for our 3:15 appointment. Soon we find out the judge is in with another case and it will be another 45 minutes or so. Around 4:15 we go into the building, in a office outside the court room. We wait….we wait….and we wait. Finally Bryan asked Vadim what the hold up was. The laws in the Ukraine have changed and now there has to be 2 witnesses present and Slava (the other driver) went to pick up one, but she wasn’t there. At 4:45, we still do not have the witness and we learn that the judge is supposed to be off work at 5pm. We are worried it may get postponed (especially since it is a Friday evening) when the other witness walks in at 5pm.

Soon Bryan and Tamera are in the court room and they have been given approval to adopt CJ. Now it is our turn. One of is to do all of the talking when the judge asks questions (Vadim was there to translate) and Praise the Lord Tom agreed to do all the talking. I was soooooooooo nervous and I probably would have stuttered over all my words. We had our photo album and the two witnesses seemed to enjoy looking at our pictures of our house and families. Tom did an awesome job asking and answering questions and we were asked to leave the room while the judge made his decision. Soon we went back in and Vadim translated while the judge gave his decision. It is somewhat difficult to understand Vadim, but we were able to get the jest of the statement….we are to be allowed to adopt Victoria Elizabeth Marie Hagan, we are to be able to change her birth certificate to give her our chosen name, and we will be listed as parents on her birth certificate!!! What an awesome feeling!!!!!!!

We left straight from the court house and arrived at the orphanage by 5:50. Of course, we hadn’t planned on getting to see her today, so we had no banana, no toys, no drink. When we got there they had her all bundled like the Michelin Man and she looked so cute. She waddled as she tried to walk. We took her outside, but it was pretty dark and I think it scared her, so we went back inside and played. The caregiver gave us some cookies to give her. We got to stay and play until 7pm and Tom was able to get some smiles out of her!

We met another couple from our adoption agency who is also adopting a 19 month old girl named Victoria, ironic, huh? Victoria is pronounced ‘Veeta’ (or maybe that is Vicky for short?) and the other couple is going to name their daughter Natalie Victoria. There is another couple from our agency (so a total of 4 couples) here in Kharkov. Tom also met a couple from California (not from our agency) in the lobby of the hotel this morning who also had their court date yesterday. It’s always great to run into other Americans!!

By the time we got home last night, I was physically and emotionally drained and we just stayed in for the evening and didn’t make it down to blog. We did call our parents to let them know we had been to court and to spread the word! Joe and Judy called early this am. Great to hear from Pa Pa and Maw Maw!!

Here’s the plan from here….we wait 10 days which puts us through November 14th, then on the 15th we go back to court where everything will be official, begin the paperwork process to get her new birth certificate and passport. Hopefully we will take the train on Wednesday November 16th, go to the American Embassy on Thursday the 17th and be on a plane for home early the morning of November 18th. Our original tickets are for November 19th, so we’ll see if we are able to beat that date. At this point, we are just so relieved to have the court date behind us, and we can see the end in sight!!

We love you all!!!

Tom, Valerie, and Elizabeth