Court Hearing, Volcano & Chest X-Ray

Court Building in Severodonetsk

But, back to where we left off after our last post…

The girls waiting for our court hearing

COURT: The day following our last post, we had our court hearing in Severodonetsk. Everything went well (even though it was a much longer process than anticipated). Court started late, the judge read from EVERY page in our Dossier and then had a 20 minute recess that turned into nearly an hour! After coming back with his decision, he read every word of the court decree in a monotone voice. At this point, Jack was so stressed from the entire proceeding, he began to laugh… not just a little, but a lot (he has always dealt with stress by laughing). He was the only one of us who spoke in court because he adopted the girls by himself. If you know Jack, you know that this has been a stressful process for him & by the time it was over and he was listening to the droning of the court decree (which was then translated in a whisper in his ear), he had had enough – he just started giggling. I almost lost it – watching him try to contain the chuckles was too much. I had to look at something else and try to think of something sad or serious just to maintain my composure. It was so obvious (to everyone except maybe the judge because I don’t think he ever even looked at us), that one of the “jurors” asked us in the car later why Jack was laughing! Note: we gave the 2 jurors a ride back to town… very strange process!

The Witness Stand - Where Jack stood to speak

The Court Clerk

Courtroom

A Cell in the Courtroom

The girls did great in court. Fortunately they weren’t there to witness Jack’s near hysteria – they had already gone back to the orphanage. Each  of them had to stand and state their name, date of birth and then answer a couple of questions about being adopted. Kristina was addressed first and she is so shy that everyone in the room was trying to help her say her name and date of birth… she just giggled and smiled. She finally managed to get it all out and nod her head to the judge about her desire to be adopted. Katya was next & came running out of the gate! She stood up and in one breath loudly stated her full legal name & date of Birth as if she had been practicing. She very confidently answered questions & then sat back down. When the judge got to Zhenya, we got our only glimpse of some personality from him. She was very sure of herself and quick to answer his questions until he said “Do you have a fiance?” – she looked perplexed and said “No.” He then asked her if she was planning to look for one in America. To that, she didn’t know how to reply… she looked at us & didn’t say anything. He moved on to other questions and she just smiled.

During the judge’s recess, the girls were taken back to the orphanage. We had just a minute to say good-bye and then they were whisked away. We were able to manage a picture in front of the court building right before they left.

Zhenya Mercy, Kristina Joy & Katya Hope Higgins!

After court, we went back to the hotel to gather our suitcases and head to the airport in Donetsk (about 2.5 hours away).

Our luggage ready & waiting

We were cutting it close trying to make our flight since court ran much longer than anticipated. It’s a small airport, however, and the hour we had was plenty of time to check in, pay for an extra bag and then shuffle to re-pack (because ours were over the weight limit), and then have all the bags wrapped in plastic – not sure if it was necessary, but since we don’t speak a lot of Russian it seemed we didn’t have much choice but to pay the man 100 greevna and then watch him wrap up our bags. Not much to write home about at the Donetsk airport. We did photograph the most interesting things… I was shocked at the state of the ladies room in an international airport (although after all our travels now, I’m just thankful it wasn’t a squatty potty!) & Jack was amazed at the A/C vents in the ceiling (the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!).

Our flights home were uneventful & we loved being in the care of Lufthansa! The most interesting part of the trip was probably our overnight layover in Munich… just think Tom Hanks in The Terminal – that’s how we felt! We weren’t sure if we could find a hotel and make it back to the airport and we weren’t willing to risk missing that flight home, so we slept on benches with our arms wrapped through our bags. The cleaning staff kept us company and did their best to wake us frequently by hitting the benches with brooms and mops. Maybe the longest 14 hours of our lives (well second to the 17 hour train ride, Jack says).

A/C vents in the ceiling of the terminal in Donetsk, Ukraine

I’ll try to catch up more tomorrow – starting with the Volcanic Ash that had us running back & forth to the airport… Right now, I’ve got to get some sleep. 6am comes early here… about when everyone at home is going to bed! I’ve got to take Zhenya to spit in a cup – more on that later!!!