Positive

Today at 12:34 St. Petersburg time, a nice judge declared that we have a "POSITIVE" decision.

Tom and I didn't sleep the greatest, its not because we were nervous, it is just a hard adjustment getting used to the time difference.  I woke up early to skype the boys and then I tried to get back to sleep.  I had the alarm set just to make sure that we didn't oversleep.  We got up, got ready and our driver and translator came at 11:00 a.m. to pick us up.  I wore a black knee length skirt, with a black/white blouse, sheer hose and high pumps.  Tom wore a Black Pin Stripe suit, Red stripped tie, and black dress shoes.  We felt comfortable in our clothes.  We got to the court house and it was a very non descript building.  It was an old building that had just been redone.  We entered the building and there were security guards, and we had to walk thru a metal detector.  I'm not really sure why though because I had my purse and it beeped, but they just said go ahead.  We met with the court translator and she informed us of the protocol again.  We were told that the judge we had does not require a speech.  When it was our turn we entered into a room, it was not very large, and not like on t.v..  It had a spot for the Judge, Prosecutor, Baby Home Director, Ministry of Education Representative and a transcriber.  The Judge entered and we stood.  She went thru the proceedings and our translator stood right behind us so we could understand what was happening and not be looking at her.  We respected the Judge and had full eye contact with her which I think she appreciated.  Everyone said why they were there and then the Judge called me up to the stand.  I had to ask what experience I had in raising children, the fact that I had 4 boys she didn't really care.  She told me that boys are different than girls.  If I understood all of the medical concerns of our daughter and a few other questions.  It really wasn't bad or that long.  I sat and she called Tom to the podium, he answered her questions, she asked Tom more about the discipline of our children and how do we disipline them.  Do we believe in corporal punishment, and if we use time outs.  Tom answered and she asked again how do we get our boys to behave all of the time, and Tom had to reassure her that there are plenty of times that the boys are punished by taking away their phones, and Ipods.  She even made a joke about "how do they survive without a phone?"  Once he was done, we sat, and testimonies were made about how we bonded with our daughter during the visits, about how our daughter was happy with us and how we were experienced parents.  The judge left the room, she came back in less than 3 minutes.  We stood and she said POSITIVE DECISION.  We can have coustody of our daughter after April 27.  My Birthday!

We then left the court house and went to see our daughter, she is ours and we are hers!

Thank you all for the prayers sent our way, we could really feel Gods hand at work in all of this.  His grace and power is mightier than all.

                                                       In our apartment before we left

Entry to court house

seeing her again