Successful Court

No more aliases.  No more "Bowen" or "Rini".

 

We are now the proud parents of Andrew Justice and Katerina Rose.

 

After a two hour court grilling, we have come out OK on the other side.  All of our requests were granted.

1) That we would be allowed to adopt Katerina and Andrew

2) That we would be named as their parents

3) That their names would be changed (slight Anglicizations and middle names).

4) That the 10-day waiting period would be waived.

We will not know this side of eternity how many people were praying for us.  We know that there was a network of hundreds(even thousands, if her English is right) of people praying for us in Ukraine and Russia, plus our friends and family back home. 

Everything went smoothly.  Thank you for your prayers and support.

----------------------------------

When Andrew was born, his father gave his mother an ultimatum - "Choose him or me!" he said, and she left her baby.  He was named Andrew (by the hospital staff? (we aren't sure) after the recent commemoration of St. Andrew.  When he heard this, Andrew's father rushed back to the hospital.  "My name is also Andrew" he said.  "I will not have that (his son) sharing my name!  Call him "Arthur" instead!"    Before this day, Andrew was one of very few Ukrainians to have a middle name - Andrew Arthur.  Today - Andrew is like most Americans in that he has a first and a middle name.  This time, however, he has a name from parents who love him.

--------------------------

The funny moment was when the judge, at about the 90 minute mark, after having read the letters of recommendation from the orphanage and the Institution, indicated the 1.5" stack of apostilled and translated documents on his desk.  "There are a lot of documents here......    is everyone OK with skipping reading all of them aloud?" (They documents have all been read by the proper parties in advance).   He went around the room, everyone stood up, said their name and title, and "yes".  Otherwise we would have been there for another three hours.   And yes, we do know some families that have had the entire stack read in court - all the way down to the medical report (new parents' height, weight, eye color.......)

We can pick up the court decree on Wednesday because Monday is a government holiday.  We hope to get a lot of the paperwork done next Wednesday.  We don't know when Gotcha Day will be yet.    

 

-----------------

 

Well, here are some pictures.  We can now post pictures of Katerina Rose.  She will probably end up as Katy or Katy-Rose.

 

 

Not to be left out in photos with his new name, here is Andrew Justice.

 

We also saw a hedgehog at Andrew's orphanage.