Families & Friends, Ladies & Gents. . .

We are happy to introduce you to SOFIA ELIZABETH LAWRENCE, formerly known as Saule Amangeldinova Shurpo!!!

It has been a very long weekend, and a much longer day. Court started at 4 pm sharp, and ended at 5:30 pm. It was an emotional hour and a half, which was witnessed by the Judge, the Prosecutor, the Courtroom Clerk, Dr. Reema the Baby House Director, and the Social Worker, Natalya. Many questions were asked, and asked again, and I broke down about 3 times and just cried . . . I wasn't a pretty sight, but the stress was very intense, and it's all I could do. Mike was a trooper and picked up when I fell apart. For whatever reason the judge decided to quiz him first (through a court-appointed interpreter) and kept going for over half an hour, then asked me a few questions and to confirm that I agreed with what Mike had just said. Various officials gave some very warm testimony about us and recommended that the court approve our adoption, and then the prosecutor asked Mike a final question. The judge then asked us for our final comments (a very emotional moment) and then retired to her chambers to consider her decision. After an endless 10-15 minutes she came back to chambers and we learned through our interpreter that Sofia would be officially part of our family!

As usual it felt like it was over 90 degrees in the room, and for some reason our whole court appearance took an hour and a half versus the usual 30-40 minutes for most proceedings in this region, but we felt that these officials genuinely had Sofia's interests in mind and were friendly but very thorough accordingly. During all of this Alex & Dominique patiently waited downstairs with Sandy's mother Helen, and were very excited to hear the news about their new sister. Then it was Sandy's turn, but maybe because our hearing went so long hers was over in about 45 minutes, with the same positive outcome (congratulations Sandy!). We then gave our court-appointed interpreter a ride (she was late for a meeting with the mayor) and came back to Kostanai to celebrate at our favorite restaurant Dolce Vita.

Tomorrow we get to visit Sofia at the baby house and will find out what the next step is, so stay tuned!