On Monday morning, we were up early to prepare our luggage to travel back to Moscow and get dressed for court.  Michael wore the same suit he wore for our wedding (the last time he wore it was likely Rita's court date!) and I wore grey trousers, blue dress shirt and black jacket. We went downstairs for breakfast and attempted to order ... We ended up with some salami type meat, cheese, bread and some sort of cake which the waitress called a pancake.  It looked like cheesecake. We brought our computers downstairs with us to breakfast*, and as I was trying to check us into our flights home, I used up all of my password attempts and logged us out of our reservation (nervous energy).

*On this trip we brought two laptops, iPad, iPhone (not in use), Blackberry, video camera, and digital camera.  We left the Kindle at home this time.

We checked out of our room and waited for our coordinator in the lobby.  It was a rainy morning and she was supposed to pick us up at 9AM for our 10AM court date.  At 9:10AM she arrived and we drove back to the Adoption Center for our coordinator to pick up some final paperwork and discuss something with the women who worked there.  I never asked what was going on but it sounded like they were trying to figure out who was going to court with us to represent the Ministry of Education.  There was some confusion -possibly the person who was supposed to go was not available / in the office.

In between those discussions, our coordinator would come over to prepare us for court.  She told us to be prepared to discuss our intentions for adoption, why we wanted to adopt an older child, describe our discipline styles, and our religion.  We also needed to be prepared to discuss K's medical conditions and social history. She also told us to answer questions with a lot of emotion - which surprised me because I think that was the opposite advice from our first experience.  We got in the car and started the drive to the court house.  Our coordinator continued to ask us about our reason for adoption, telling us that the judge was going to find it strange that we have no other reason to adopt than wanting to adopt an older child who needs a home ("That's the worst answer for him. He does not understand why a family would want to adopt").  We decided that to help justify our answer that we would discuss the programs we saw on television about older children needing homes, we were Catholic (Michael), and the Ukraine orphanage missionary work pursued by my Russian Orthodox grandmother's church interested me.

Since we were running late (?), when we got to the court house we quickly entered, rushed past security and up 2 flights of stairs to a court room.  The large room had lots of windows, a large judges bench with three chairs and a flag behind each chair.  We sat in the first row of benches facing the judge.  Our coordinator sat to the left of me, in front of the desk of the prosecutor.  On the desk to the right was the secretary.  In the row behind us was the Orphanage Director and Representative from the Ministry of Education.  In the row behind them was the Social Worker representing the city.  All of them were women and very friendly with each other.  The secretary was showing everyone her holiday photos (!).  Our coordinator told us this is where all of the adoption cases were heard.  We also had to decide who was going to do most of the talking (me).

The judge entered the room around 10:15 or 10:30.  He was probably in his 50s, short gray hair, serious nature, and did not show much emotion or overall interest.  Maybe a bit impatient.  His eyes would look at us and then shift away.  He stated the rules of the court and asked if we wanted to change our minds about our petition to adopt K.  Then we all had to introduce ourselves.  The judge told everyone in the room that the adoption proceedings were completely confidential and all attendees (except us) had to sign paperwork stating that no information could be shared and that if our case was successful that no one in the room could disclose that K was adopted (assuming that if we wanted to keep the adoption 'secret' from her we could).  Since she's an older child and knows she is being adopted, I'm not sure that this was needed.

Over the next 1.5 hours or so, the judge asked us question after question.  Our coordinator prepared us very well.  The questions were all asked, in the same order as she described.  Since everything had to be translated, after 30 seconds or one minute of our reply (maybe 25% of our answer), our coordinator would stop and translate and then the judge would ask the next question.  I felt like I wasn't giving complete answers but it seemed like my answers were satisfying the judge.  About 20 minutes in, our coordinator wrote on the paper she was taking notes: "he likes you", which definitely helped with my nerves.

Here are some of the things he asked us:

• Describe your family.
• Is your family supportive of your adoption?
• What are your jobs?  What is your annual household income?  
• Describe your home.  Do you own your home or do you owe a mortgage?
• When did you get married?  Is this your first marriage?  Do you have any children from previous marriages?
• What is your neighborhood like?  What amenities are available?  Is your neighborhood diverse?
• Why do you want to adopt a child? Older child?  Another girl?  Why two girls?
• Why do you want to adopt from Russia?
• How long ago did you adopt from Russia the first time?
• Why did you adopt from Russia the first time?  Why do you not want to have your own children?  Have you ruled out having biological children?  Would you love your adoptive children less if you have a biological child?
• Where did you adopt in Russia before?  Did you want to adopt from that region again?  Why didn't you?
• What was your experience adopting your first child?  Why was she in the orphanage?
• What were her medical conditions and what have you done to remedy / deal with them?
• How has she integrated in school, family and friends?  What does she like to do?  What do you do as a family?  Do your families love her?
• Did you keep her Russian name?
• Is your daugher excited to have a sister?  Is she ready for another child in the family?  How did she react to the news of having a new sister?
• How are you going to deal with sibling rivalry?
• What discipline methods do you use with your first daughter?  Does it work?
• Have you heard about the children who have been adopted from Russia and killed by their new American parents?  What do you think of that?  Is that something that could happen in your family?
• Do you believe in corporal punishment?
• Why do you think K is the child you want to adopt?
• What do you like about her?
• What were your first thoughts about her?
• When did you receive your referral?  Did you receive limited information about her before you traveled to meet her?
• How many times did you meet with her and for how long?
• What did you do with her during your visits?
• When did you know that you wanted to adopt her?
• What are her medical conditions?
• Are you prepared to deal with those medical conditions?  What are you going to do when you go home to treat those conditions?  
• What is her social background?
• Would you support her if she wants to connect with relatives in the future?
• How are you going to communicate with her since she doesn't speak English?
• What are your plans once she goes home?  Is she going to go to school right away?
• How much time from work are you going to take off?  What are you going to do when you go back to work?  Will she have a babysitter?
• Is your work supportive of your adoption?
• Is her room ready?
• Do you receive any tax incentives for adopting?  Do you receive any other financial support or incentives to adopt?
• What commitments do you have adopting from Russia? (post placement reports, registering child at Russian Embassy, the child assumes all rights a biological child would have)