Best.....Day.....Ever

Well, let's get the suspense over with....WE ARE NOW PARENTS!

He couldn't be happier and neither could we!

Our court date as I mentioned previously had been moved up one day to August 20. Our new driver Bulot and our translator Natasha picked us up and brought us to the courthouse. Now if you are picturing something out of Law & Order, you can stop. The "courtroom" looked more like a classroom in an older school (there was even a whiteboard in the corner). A few benches and the judges desk were the only furnishings. Not at all the imposing sight we had been expecting. The folks in the courtroom were our two lawyers, Natasha, us, a doctor from the babyhouse, some official from the Ministry of Education, some other dude (he seemed like Mac on Night Court), and then our judge, who happened to be a lady (we were told that female judges are a little more difficult than their male counterparts). But luckily for us, she must have been in a good mood, because we were out of there in 15 minutes. I did my speech while Natasha translated it, then the doctor spoke, and then the guy from the Ministry of Education spoke. Somewhat suddenly, the judge got up and left. There was no announcing of a decision, no pounding of a gavel, nothing. We were walking out of the courthouse and were quite confused until our lawyer Barry said "You can relax now, you are parents." So that was that.


We were scheduled to visit with Max from 10am-noon which meant we would be going right to the babyhouse in our new duds. However, we had some other good news in the morning: our luggage was on its way to Aktobe and would be here while we were in court. So we re-scheduled our visit to the 4-6pm time and went to the airport. This worked much better since all of Max's toys (and his Cheerios) were in our checked bags.

More good news...when we got back to the apartment, the IT guy was here to get us on the internet. So now we don't have to drink beer in a smoky cafe to get online.

And then finally, we got to see Max! It was wonderful to get to see him again after two and a half loooong months apart. As we expected, there wasn't much recognition, but he readily came to us and had lots of fun playing with his toys and us. He settled right back into his usual routine of cups and rings at the bench, walking (with assistance still), and Cheerio time. They had him in a T-shirt and shorts with only one pair of socks (we actually got to see his toes for the first time). They also had a thin hat on him, but we took that off first thing. They had resumed shaving his head as we expected, but we're also guessing that will stop now that we are in our appeals period (in 15 days, we will get custody!).

Getting some comfort from his Mommy after he hit his head

We're back at "home" now and are going to enjoy some ramen noodles before going to bed early.