Court

Our court date was Tuesday, October 28th. Our regional facilitator, Viktor, met us at the courthouse and we got started a few minutes after 11:00. We had court in the Judge’s chambers with the head judge of the region presiding, plus 2 jurors (one of whom came in late; both of whom were pensioners), an Inspector from Luhansk (for B), a representative from B’s college, an Inspector from Lutugino (for Y), a representative from Y’s Internat, Viktor and us. The kids waited in the secretary’s office right outside the door, where Y managed to charm a little trinket out of her.

The court hearing took an hour and a half. We answered a lot of questions and the kids each came in briefly to answer some questions from the Judge. The Judge asked Y if she knew us, if she wanted us to be her parents, if she wanted to go to America and learn English. Yes, yes, yes and yes. “So, you want to go to America and leave Ukraine behind?” “I have nothing to leave here” and “what would I do here” are the translations we received of her response. All of the Ukrainians in the room, especially the Judge, got a kick out of that. After pronouncing her a smart girl, the Judge sent her on her way.

B was next. He was literally bouncing on his feet and the Judge had just a few questions for him before saying “I can see on your face that you can’t wait to go to America” – that’s for sure!

After all of the questions, we waited around for a bit for the prosecutor to show up. During this time, the Judge asked our opinions about Ukrainian and American politics. Fun! After a few minutes of chatting, he sent us out of the room to continue waiting for the prosecutor. A few minutes later, we all filed back in to note the prosecutor’s presence for the record, then filed back out for the Judge and jury to deliberate.

Finally, about 10 minutes later, we were called in to hear the verdict: we’re parents!