Court Day

• Our court hearing was scheduled for 10:00AM. We arrived and went through the general info again and listened to the info on all the new documentation. The judge went around the room and asked all parties if they agreed with our request to adopt Dias. All parties agreed except for the prosecutor. The prosecutor requested more time to make her decision and ask that we reconvene at 6:00PM.


• We were surprised because we thought the judge would only ask for 15 minutes or so…

• We left the courthouse around noon and went back to the apartment to have lunch.

• We changed our clothes and went to visit with D from 2 – 3:30.

• Came back to the apartment for a little work & rest. Changed back into our court clothes and headed to the courthouse.

• We started our court session about 6:15PM & the prosecutor went through her final statement and eventually said that she thinks the judge should grant our adoption. HUGE sigh of relief, now we just needed to hear it from the Judge’s mouth. Instead, the Judge said she needed more time to make her decision…please come back at 8:00PM.

• At this point, I lost it. I started to tear up in the courtroom as the Judge briskly walked out. The waiting and anxiety finally took its toll on me. Outside of the courtroom everyone told us not to worry that the Judge would definitely give us a positive decision. I was worried though…I just needed to hear the words.

• To kill some time, everyone went back to my lawyer’s office to have a celebration of the forthcoming positive decision. I tried to go along with it, but really wasn’t in the celebrating mood…I needed to hear that yes.

• Everyone gave a little speech and toast to us and it was very nice. Dustin gave a speech to everyone thanking them for all of their help in creating our little family. It was a nice party and everyone liked their gifts.

• Right before 8:00PM everyone got ready to leave. Only our lawyer needed to be present to hear the Judge’s ruling and she told us that we could go home and she would call us. The translator had to go and couldn’t go to the court with us. She said that if we wanted, we could go with her and she could try to translate a YES to us once the judge said it.

• Of course we wanted to go with her! We got back to the courtroom and waited for the Judge to come in. She came in and read a few sentences and then smiled at us for the first time. We instantly felt better and felt such a huge weight lift off of us. Our lawyer smiled and said “It’s a positive decision!”

• The Judge agreed to everything and officially changed his name to Ryland Dias Stone. She told us that we would now be listed as his parents on his birth certificate and all other documents in Kazakhstan.

• RELIEF!!!!! We really feel that the “hard” part is behind us now; let the fun begin!
 

 

Our lawyer/coordinator, the Director of the Orphange, Rep from the Dept of Guardianship/Care for all of Pavlodar & of course, The Stone's.