We are APPROVED !!

Our court hearing went great, it lasted about a half hour. We had a man as a judge and we were told that we were his first adoption case. Eric made a speech/statement for the two of us and then I had to say that I agree and supported what he said on our behalf. The director of the baby house then read a report about Lincoln’s medical history. A representative from the Kazakhstan Department of Education read a long report about us and their reasoning why they thought we would make good parents to a Kazakhstani child. One of our coordinators here in Aktobe also had to answer a few of the judge’s questions regarding our bonding time with Lincoln. While the woman from the Dept. of Education was speaking a man came into the court room and sat down. This man was the public prosecutor, who was suppose to be there at the beginning of the hearing but actually arrived 20 minutes late. Needless to say the judge was not impressed with him. Then the man’s cell phone went off, again the judge was not happy. Then he had the opportunity to present his side of the case and he stood up and said the woman from the Dept. of Education was missing some of her forms for our case. The judge reprimanded him at this point and told him if he would have arrived on time he would have heard her present the information that he was claiming she was missing. The prosecutor then just sat down. The judge then asked us to stand again and he asked us: Did we think Lincoln was handsome? Do we feel like Lincoln loves us? Is he happy with us? Do we love him? Are we happy with him? We were prepared for some somewhat tough questions but these questions were quick easy answers for the two of us. They then asked us to leave the room. After just a couple minutes we were invited back into the room and the judge told us he approved our application to adopt Lincoln and that yes he agreed that we could change his name to be Lincoln Andrew Dykes assuming we promised to keep his date and place of birth the same. We also had to agree to a few other conditions to the adoption that we were well aware of before.

What happens now??? We have to wait out a 15 day appeal period and on the 16^th day we will receive full custody of Lincoln. We are not sure yet if the 15 day appeal period starts today as day one or if day one is tomorrow. This we will try and get clarification on this afternoon. We will continue the same visitation schedule through out the appeal period.

Once we take full custody of Lincoln he will leave the baby house and move into our apartment with us. We will spend a few additional days here in Aktobe while Lincoln’s passport application is processed. Once the paperwork is underway here in Akotbe we will then fly back to Almaty where Lincoln will be required to have a medical examination by a doctor that has approval from the United States Government. Once this exam takes place we can apply for Lincoln’s visa. Lincoln will automatically become a citizen of America upon our arrival.

I will post again tonight or tomorrow about our visit with Lincoln this afternoon and our celebration tonight. All adoptive families in town will be going out to the Lancelot restaurant to celebrate our successful court hearing as well as Gen & Joel’s which took place directly after ours.