Pre-court done

We got the long-awaited call last night: the judge wanted to see us in court at 10 am this morning. I hardly slept (it didn't help that our neighbor was up to the wee hours, screaming at the top of his lungs in Russian). Fortunately, I woke up in time.

For the record, pre-court is when the judge reviews all the paperwork to ensure nothing is amiss. (And because it's April Fool's Day today I half expected something to be missing, like our FBI fingerprints.) I have to admit I haven't been this nervous in a long time. The judge's chamber was boiling as we sat sweating for the better part of an hour in our court clothes. Seated around the table was the judge, our interpreter Yulia, Natalya (a representative of Tree of Life), the social worker from the Uralsk Department of Education and a representative from the orphanage.

This is a new international adoption judge, so you never know what to expect. He's a man known for dotting his "i's" and crossing his "t's"--and he went over everything with a fine toothed comb. (Apparently, his background is in investigation.) For some reason, the judge seemed duly impressed with our tax returns. His exact comments: they are so clear to read (I'm thinking something must've gotten lost in the translation). He also chuckled after seeing our wedding photo. (Hey, now that's not funny.) When he saw the pictures of Nurlan, he said Nurlan reminded him of the old Kazakhs. Apparently when the Mongolians first entered Kaz they intermingled with the natives who were fair haired and blue-eyed. It's obvious Garrett Nurlan is a mixture of both.

In the end, both the orphanage and the agency were sent away to redo some documents. Our court day is scheduled for tomorrow, same time and place. Then we were dismissed.

So, thankfully no April Fool pranks today. See you on the other side of court.