Day 39 - Court complete...Success

Well today has been a whirlwind. We arrived at court this morning, to hear that our facilitator was on a train which arrived 35 minutes after court was due to start. As we waited, the power went out in the building, and it did not turn back on until 8:45 (maybe there is hope he will make it). No such luck, the orphanage lawyer informed the judge that our facilitator was not here. We were told that if we need him, court will be rescheduled for one week later. That was not going to happen, I told them we will proceed without the facilitator. After about 20 minutes answering the judges questions, he stood up, said he awards Halina, now to be named Sophia, to us and this judgement takes effect in 10 days. He then quickly walked out and Lisa and I stood there looking at each other thinking, is that it? After some handshakes from the orphanage lawyer and the director of juvenile services, we were now parents. We went out to the street to wait for our facilitator (because he had brought with him the last important document needed from Kiev). When he arrived, we told him court was done, give the document to the orphanage lawyer and Lisa proceeded to go up one side of him and down the other. I was so proud of her, I just stood there and cheered her on.

We spent the rest of the day going around to the various governement departments to find out exactly how things work in this oblast for getting the rest of the documents we need. We will take the weekend to plan our exit stradegy, but our hope is to be flying out on 5 December.