Court

I woke early, excited and nervous. I was showered and dressed by 7:15, when Victor arrived. He was tired, having slept little on the train, and after getting cleaned up a little, he briefed us on court procedure. He told us the kinds of questions we'd be asked and I wrote down the things we needed to be sure to say, specifically what we are requesting to court to do for us:

1. Grant us permission to adopt Nicoleynko Artem Igorvitch.

2. Name Kevin and I as his parents.

3. Change his name to Kairos Andrew McCormack.

4. Drop the paternal name Igorvitch, in accordance to US tradition.

5. Retain his date and place of birth.


Vladimir picked us up in his taxicab and we went to the court building. It was a dingy place in an alley near the orphanage. Victor left me and Kevin there while he went to the orphanage to get Kai. He returned nearly 45 minutes later. To pass the time, Kevin repaired Kai's broken glasses with the Super Glue. They were nearly set when everyone arrived; Victor, Kai, Ekaterina (the orphanage director) and the Inspector from juvenile services. Kai looked great. He was clean and dressed in the new clothes that the kids in the orphanage recently got, white shirt, dress pants, sweater and black shoes (that looked like they actually fit!). I couldn't read his emotional state. He seemed subdued, perhaps out of respect for where he was. I had a hard time mustering up much respect. The place was a dump, really, especially when you compare it to American courts.

It was about 10:15 when we were lead to the "courtroom". It was just a regular run-down room with wooden theater-like chairs whose seats flipped up when you stood up. There was a table in front with a Ukrainian flag on the wall behind. A cage was in the corner to the right. It literally was a cage, slightly bigger than a phone booth, where I suppose they would put criminals while on trial. Kevin asked if that's where Kai should go. I said Kevin should, but refrained from the urge to act on it. To our left sat the "Persecuter". Kevin and I had to teach Victor how to properly say "prosecutor". That was probably the funniest part of the whole thing.

The judge and 2 jurors entered and we stood. The judge was an elderly woman in black judge robes. She could have been anywhere from 60 to 65 years old. Victor told us that court could take all day but that there is a break scheduled for 1:00, so hopefully we could be done by then. I found out soon enough why court could take all day. The old lady judge read nearly every document in our dossier out loud. Victor translated as she spoke. Then she asked us questions, the answers to which were everything she just said. There was so much repetition it was torturous. Kevin answered all the questions and then I had to answer the exact same questions, like what is your name?, What is your address? It was ridiculous. My impression of the judge is that she had a very over-inflated sense of her own self-importance. And God forbid that we didn't agree with her. At one point Victor told me to ask that she just go ahead and give us the court agreement and skip all the red tape. What a hoot! Of course she would have none of that. It was impossible to go outside the law.

The long and the short of it was that we were done in less than 2 hours. The "jury" deliberated with the judge for about 10 minutes and they came back and read a very repetitive document stating our requirements and responsibilities. Then the 10 day waiting period was instated, and we were told that, because the 11th day is a Saturday, we will not be able to actually receive the court agreement document until until the 19th. Figures, doesn't it!

But we passed another hurdle toward adopting this kid and we were all pretty happy. Victor took us to a nearby restaurant for lunch. It's name was "Horseshoe". Everyone in Ukraine has horseshoe shaped trinkets hanging from stuff, especially in taxi cabs. The restaurant was nice and the food was very good. Victor helped us order and we got a lot of traditional foods like borscht, olivia salad, and meat-like substances with potatoes and mushrooms. Kai and Kevin ate a ton.

Then we walked back to the orphanage, about 1/2 mile, and Victor did stuff in the Director's office for about an hour. Kai changed his clothes and found us sleeping on the couches. Kevin and I were exhausted for some reason. Kai seemed subdued, too. We left with Victor at 2:00. We ran errands in Vladimir's cab, first to the office of Vital Statistics, then to change money, then to the notary. We ended up being at the notary's office for over an hour. Victor was trying to finagle them to let us sign petitions for the passport before we had our new birth certificate. In the end, we signed something, but I'm not sure what it was.

Then we went back to the apartment and Victor let Kevin Skype on his computer to the Hadgi at tech support so he could try to get into his computer. After being on hold for the next available analyst for 20 minutes, Kevin talked to his Hadgi for a half hour. He still couldn't get on his computer when they finished, but Kevin tried changing the foward slash to a backslash and he got access. How stupid is that???? He had to log in on safe mode as Administrator or something, but he got on. What an ordeal!

Victor had to go back to the orphanage and I had told Kai that I would return, but I was literally wiped out. I opted to stay home and I just chilled and watched a movie (Failure To Launch) while Kevin continued to do battle with his computer. I went to bed at 10:30, which was a very good idea.