Our Journey to Liam: And then there were three!!!!

Yes, the day has finally come. We can now say we are the proud parents of Liam Joseph . After almost two years of waiting and endless amounts of paperwork, we are parents. Yeah!!!

Court lasted a little more than an hour. Most of that time, the judge was talking. He was explaining the process, our rights, going over documents and asking questions. Keith spoke for about 15 minutes and that included translation. He did an excellent job and did not seem nervous at all. Me on the hand, forget it. As soon as I stood up to speak, I forgot everything. Good thing, I did not have a lot to say. After the judge went over every piece of paper in our file, the other people in the room had a chance to speak. The baby house director spoke about Liam's health and backed our petition for immediate execution. The Ministry of Education spoke about our bonding process and also backed our petition and then there was a representative from the records office that confirmed Liam's birth records. Next, the prosecutor spoke and gave her opinion. She also agreed with our petition for immediate execution. We then waited about 15 minutes for the ruling. The judge came back in; read alot of legal stuff and told us our application for adoption was granted and our petition for immediate execution was approved. What a relief.

The Forkashs were waiting to go in next. When they came home with their good news, we all went out for a celebratory lunch at the Chagala Hotel. We had a really nice lunch. We then came back to the apartment and waited for a call to go to the records office.

While we were waiting for the call, we put together all the presents for the caregivers(12), the babyhouse director, the doctors(2) and the inspector from the Ministry of Education. We will bring the gifts tomorrow when we pick up Liam, as it will be the last time we are at the babyhouse. Now our house will have the baby in it.

We waited all day and then got the call to go at 6pm. We went to the records office and signed for his birth certificate and adoption certificate. Both certificates are now on there way to Astana for Liam's passport. We had them in our hands for maybe 5 seconds.

Unfortunately, we did not get to see Liam today. We will be leaving to get him early tomorrow morning and bring him home. Too exciting.