We headed off to visist with Max this morning prior to our appearance in court at 2pm. We were greeted with a somewhat cranky kid, but managed to settle down quickly. The director of the orphanage said that he is really trying to test our limits. We believed her!
At one point, one of his caretakers gave him a piece of candy as incentive to settle down. What differed from the candy on previous days was this was chocolate candy. He refused to allow us to feed it to him. He wanted to do it himself. As a result, he ended up with chocolate all over his hands, his face, his ear, his clothes, and MY clothes. Who thought it was a good idea to give him chocolate? And especially on the day we had to go to court? I guess the judge wouldn't doubt we had contact with him today!
After our visit, we headed off to court. The actual courtroom was not in what we expected, but rather in a old building in the middle of the city, without any markings. We were greeted by our court translator, the director from our agency, the deputy medical director of the orphanage, and a director from the family services department. We were asked to come into the courtroom, where a judge, prosecutor and clerk were present. The judge read our names aloud, along with other demographic infomation and proceeded to ask us questions about our jobs, our income, and our intent to adopt. The prosecutor had a few questions as well. The deputy director and director from family services read information about Max, such as his date of birth, weight, medical conditions, etc. Shortly thereafter, the judge issues a "positive verdict" in our case, and pronounced us the parents of Max. We have to wait 10 days to allow anyone who wishes to appeal her verdict in the Russian Supreme court, but after that, we will take custody of him.
We anticipate returning next week to start his passport paperwork and hopefully will have him home by August 20th. While we are not looking forward to traveling with him, in country, we can't wait to get him home to meet his new family and friends!
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