September 12, 2007…the day the judge formally announced that he was issuing Grace’s adoption order! It’s been 10 months since Grace joined our family, and though I was never too worried that something would go wrong, it is such a relief to know that now everything is legal! (Though she still won’t be an American citizen for another year.)
Everything on Wednesday went so well. This was our third court hearing–at the first two, at least one of the essential people did not show up. We didn’t have high expectations for this hearing either, because of social worker problems. But everyone showed up on time (lawyers, social worker), and we only had to wait 45 minutes to see the judge. (Everyone shows up at 9, and you never know when your case will be called. With a toddler, this gets interesting! The hallway where we waited is full of lawyers and criminals in chains!)
Below are pictures from the exciting day. They are not very clear–since we didn’t expect much too happen that day, we hadn’t brought our camera–so these are from Gil’s cell phone!
Our social worker Harriet, and our two lawyers
In front of the court house–now officially a Medina!