We Are Family!

Kemerovo, Feb 19,9:45 PM: Today at 12:16 PM local time our adoption of Delaney Svetlana Brandt, Parker Alexander Brandt and Carson Vladimir Brandt was officially pronounced by the Kemerovo Oblast Court of the Russian Federation; we are now a family of six!
Having come so far, literally, it is still sinking in that we are 7/8’s of the way towards our goal of adoption. Not only did the court approve the adoption but they made the adoption effective immediately meaning we do not have to wait the usual 10 days for the court decision to be effective. Therefore, tomorrow morning we will drive to Delaney’s boarding school and the boys’ orphanage and bring them ‘home’ to our hotel. Thus will start the family phase of our adoption.
What a saga the last four days have been. Aside from being exhausted and hungry we’ve been anxious about how everything would flow. To our relief, today’s events went smoothly and presented no hitches – our adoption agency staff here are top shelf. Our hearing began a little late at 11:10 and concluded just over an hour later. Kevin was told to prepare a speech of about 10 to 15 minutes to cover many topics from our motivation to our finances to our relationship with the children. We were told to specially include references to our mortgage and wedding dates. As it turned out Kevin started with the meaning of our wedding date (Nov. 25th) and the judge took it from there with a range of questions that required answers from Kevin’s speech. Mid-way through the Q and A the pictures that we had struggled with the morning of our departure were requested. As they were passed around it was the first time in the hearing that smiles broke out among all participants including the judge! After 20 minutes of grilling Kevin was asked to sit down and Nancy was asked to stand and asked if she agreed to “everything your husband had just said.” Fortunately she did and a few more questions to her satisfied the judge.
More boilerplate-appearing readings were conducted (in Russian of course) and soon we got to the medical stuff. The enumeration of serious-sounding ailments resulted in an offer by the judge on the part of the Russian Federation to conduct more tests on the children. We respectfully declined and we moved on to our request to waive the Russian law which requires a 10 day waiting period before any court ruling can be made effective. After Kevin’s oral statement which was supported by the Oblast’s prosecutor and the regional Ministry of Education’s official the judge asked us all to step out of the court room (of special note: the court room included a pair of cells which were constructed on 1” rebar which fortunately we didn’t have to sit in). After not more than 2 minutes we were called back in for the reading of the court’s decision. Of course it was all in Russian but our interpreter gave us a running account and we squeezed each other’s hands to the point of pain as she pronounced each of the three adoptions approved. When she announced that she was waiving the 10 day waiting period we both gave a huge sigh of relief. As the judge and other participants filed past where we were standing we both hugged and our interpreter said, “Kevin, you look a lot more relaxed.”
The rest of the day was spent driving from the Oblast’s registrar’s office to the court house to some other place and back again and again. After the new birth certificates were issued and the passports prepared we went shopping for the little parties that we will host at the orphanage and boarding school when we go to pick up the kids tomorrow. Finally, we went to the local travel agency to purchase our tickets back to Moscow for our family of 5. I’m certain there isn’t a group rate here in Russia but we’ll certainly look into that back in the USA!
Tonight we ceremoniously opened the vacuum-sealed bag of kid’s clothes and packed a separate suitcase full of clothes and snowsuits to take to the kids. In orphanages the kids have nothing of their own. When they are adopted we basically get the kids au-naturale… so socks to underwear to snow boots and parkas are all being delivered tomorrow.
There are more stories to be told of course (like how Carson hugged his soon-to-be-dad and exclaimed in Russian “you feel just like a hedgehog!”, Parker cutting out a silhouette of an airplane announcing that he is ready to fly or Delaney hugging each of us so hard when we returned to see her that we could hardly breathe). As time permits we will share them. Please know that you were all with us today in that court room and we felt the power of your support. In fact, the judge asked us about our families’ support and specifically how Ellie feels about our adoption. As all of you have reminded us over these months this is a huge commitment. Each of you in both big and small ways has inspired us: Ellie, our parents and siblings, cousins and other family and friends and colleagues that we work with. Without your love and support we would not have the confidence to be here and both of us and three little children in Siberia would not be excitedly looking forward to the rest of our lives together.
Love, Kevin and Nancy