[ahnasmom]

Congrats!!! They are soo precious and beautiful!!! Enjoy every minute!!!

[Ktates]

Congratulations! They are adorable!

[manon]

Oh, what cute babies! You didn't by chance adopt from Saratov, did you? Your Alexandra reminds me a lot of another friend's little girl, but they're about the same age I think, so they couldn't be sisters unless they were clones. I don't think they are doing that, so they probably aren't siblings.

So pretty.

Congratulations! Isn't it nice to be home again?

[citymom]

Wow! They are absolutely gorgeous. I haven't been posting much lately but I had to say a word on this. Congratulations....you have been through so much for these babies. I am truly, truly happy for you.

[tschuitema73]

Thanks for all the congratulations! We are so happy to finally have our children home with us. I swear they've grown already. Our little boy took three steps yesterday!!! He has no fear. Alexandra is little miss princess. She has a bracelet she won't take off and loves when it's time to get dressed. It is so cute.
Tamara

[tschuitema73]

This is a very long post. (and it is not checked for errors) I just wanted to share our court story with all of you it's a doozy.
We arrived in our region on Monday May 24th with a court date for Thursday 5/27. Well on Wednesday we heard our court date would be changed to Friday. On Thursday it was changed to Tuesday. I am not kidding on Monday we were told it was changed to Thursday. This was all do to a questionable recommendation from one of the officials. So we actually do go to court on Thursday.
My husband is questioned for about an hour and the judge suggests to him that we take only our daughter. Because we were given a favorable recommendation from her district official. My husband conveyed to her his love for both children. He spoke so beautifully the judge was actually pretty emotional.
During court the judge is very upset and calls us to the BENCH She is pointing and questioning us about some information that is on one of our documents. Our translator finally figures out after going back and forth from the russian to english documents that they have been translated wrong. The russian document showed our monthly debt as income and income as debt some thing like that. What ever it was the judge realized why the recommendation was questioned for our son his district official thought we were over our head in debt.
We were to return the next day with a new recommendation for our son.
Soooo we get to court Friday. And we find out that the recommendation has been changed but the TOP district official had not signed it. The judge of course was not happy about this. She wanted to postpone court again until the following Tuesday (no court on Mondays...) I have to tell you THIS was my breaking point. I covered my face and sobbed. I told our facilitator we wanted to continue with court. Since we were prepared to go ahead with this recommendation to begin with. She goes and speaks to the judge. The judge comes into the court room. I can't even remember all that was said. Pretty much everyone is crying our daughters director the Ministry of Education. I remember the judge looking at me and saying "I know you care so much for these children. And you are strong enough to take them not knowing what their future will be. You are strong enough to wait" she is crying, she covers her face with her files and leaves. Our daughters director tells we can take her back to our flat on Saturday and have her all day until evening to cheer us up. It did. It was wonderful.
Tuesday JUNE 8th we have court it takes about 30 minutes. We are hugging everyone in the parking lot and we leave.
We pick up the children the next day. We have one night together before leaving to Moscow. We then found out there were no seats going to Moscow. I prayed and prayed. Somehow our facilitator knew somebody they found us seats.
We were so happy to be in Moscow. We went to the Embassy the day of Reagans funeral. They were supposed to be closed but were going to get a whole days work done in 3 hours. And they did. If anyone else here was there that day please PM me.
Well that was just our official business. I don't think I mentioned that we had No hot water after the 3rd day.
My sweet husband says he wouldn't change a thing. I'm not there yet...
Tamara

[toria]

Wow! What a nightmare. Seeing your beautiful children though, i know it is worth it. How aweful though, you should not have been put thru that. Enjoy your new family! Of course I want to know what region you were in as i have not traveled yet!
Best wishes to you and your family

[ATwinkleofHope]

OMG, I don't know how you did it. I would of lost it.

-Jo

[J&T]

What Pictures! They look so happy!! Congratulations!!!
Welcome Home!

[J&T]

We saw the pictures before reading your story. I am so sorry for all that you had to go through. What a nightmare because of a mistake on a piece of paper!!!! I am just soooo glad you had a good judge that seemed to care about you and the kids. What if you had never found out what was wrong?!!! Your children are beautiful. I know nothing could have been sweeter after the ordeal than to sleep peacefully at home with your new family in your own beds! Congrats!