Court Preparation

When we received our LOI, our agency thought we would not be able to get a court date on our first trip. So we planned to have the pre-court interview and then come home for an undetermined amount of time before returning for court, the 15 day waiting period, and all of the other paperwork to bring our son home. Since we have arrived, our adoption facilitator, who is also a lawyer, (Saule) has been working to try to get us a court date on this trip. We will be the first family with our agency to go through the new juvenile court system in Astana rather than the general court system. Therefore everyone is a little on edge because they do not know what to expect.

This morning Saule came over to our apartment with an interpreter (not our normal interpreter) to prep us for the pre-court interview and court. We discussed all of our answers to the questions we can expect and what to include in our speech. Apparently we BOTH have to give a speech. I hate speaking in public even when I can read what I am going to say. How am I going to present a memorized speech in court that will determine the fate of our family forever? Saule said “it only has to be about 5 minutes”…5 minutes! That is a long time! They also reviewed our gifts again and determined exactly who will receive which gifts. We were told to dress professionally for pre-court and court. I only brought one nice outfit, so I was thinking I would have to wear it for both events.

After they left, we had pizza for lunch and got ready for the baby visit. At first we were told that the visit would have to be cut short in order for Saule to submit our paperwork to the judge to request the pre-court interview. But half-way through our visit, Saule called and said that instead we would be picked up a half hour late because she had gotten an appointment with the judge. When she picked us up, she said that there would be no separate pre-court and that our final court date may be as much as a week-and-a-half earlier than expected! We will know for sure later. We suddenly feel like our time here is limited and we need to do everything quickly. We will still have to change our original tickets to come home later, but by much less than we expected.

When we arrived at the baby house today, there was a news crew there. We were quickly ushered upstairs to wait for Nikolai to be brought to us. We watched the news interview from the window, but I do not know what it was about. All I saw was a very well-dressed woman holding a baby girl all in pink getting interviewed. She then drove away in a fancy Mercedes with black windows.

Nik was very unhappy today and the aunties said he had not slept. He actually cried just out of tiredness for the first time that we have seen. Plus they gave us a bottle that just poured out liquid, which made him cry because he could not just chew or suck on it without it spilling all over (and me taking it away to make sure he did not drown). He fell asleep about 20 minutes before the end of the visit. There were some brief moments of crazy laughter today as well – especially while we swung him in front of the mirror. He loves looking at himself in the mirror and it usually makes him giggle just to catch sight of himself.

The weather is slightly warmer today, so we decided to walk down to the fountain where we had found the good restaurant before (Kyshlak). There are four or five restaurants at this location (which is called “round square”). We decided to try one that looked Japanese. Despite specifically saying we would not have Sushi in a land-locked country like Kazakhstan, we had sushi! We also had the best miso soup, vegetable tempura, and sake. It was strange to order Japanese food in Russian from a menu written in Kazakh and English. The restaurant was expensive, but it was a really nice change from the food we have been making in the apartment.