Who's Your Daddy (And Mommy)?

If you’re name is Neil Hollis Ginsberg, then we are!

Our day started out with a 7am pickup from our driver and we hit the road for the 2 ½ hour ride to Kemerovo.

The drive was surprisingly beautiful. It had lots of rolling green hills, beautiful trees and the occasional woman taking her cow for its morning stroll. And don’t forget the horse and buggy taking up the roadway as well. (This is not a joke)

We arrived into the city at about 9:30 and stopped to pick-up Anna, who introduced herself as our translator for court and then continued to scare the crap out of me in a matter of 45 seconds.
She told me I would be doing most of the talking and then threw me a laundry list of things I needed to memorize. (His real name, his medical diagnosis, why we chose Russia, to name a few)
We pulled up to the courthouse and went downstairs to a waiting area while Anna and the director of CHI, Natalia (surprise) went and checked us in.

Anna told us we had to wait on the prosecutor who was running late.

Finally she showed up about 15 minutes later and we were escorted down a smoke-filled staircase to the courtroom.

Once inside, we sat in the first row of pew and waited on the judge to come in. Anna sat next to us. In front of us were the prosecutor, a social worker and the court clerk.

Finally the judge walked in and we all rose. Then Brandy sat down and it was me on stage.
I stated my name, birthdate, employer, info about our house and then the fun questions came.

Why Russia? Why did we choose to adopt? Is our family supportive of the decision?
I don’t remember what answers I gave but Brandy told me later I did great and that she was proud of me. I’m not sure if I was boring the judge because she yawned out loud about 4 times. Anna later told us the judge had a rough night and didn’t get much sleep. It wasn’t me.

That lasted about 25 minutes. Then the judge asked Brandy to stand up and asked if she had anything to add. She added a couple of things, we then requested the 10 day waiting period be waived, and then it was decision time.

We were told to leave the courtroom while the judge made her decision. 45 seconds later were back in the courtroom and awaited her decision.

At 10:42 am local time, the judge pronounced Brandy and Coby parents of Neil Hollis Ginsberg.

And………wait for it………wait for it…..she waived the 10 day waiting period. Yippee.

After court we went to apply for his birth certificate and citizenship paper, then went to buy plane tickets back to Moscow, had lunch (in which somehow we got stuck paying for the whole group) and applied for his passport.

In case you didn’t get it already, we are officially a Mommy and a Daddy!!!

We arrived back in Novo at 5:30pm and had some dinner before retiring to our hotel room.

Tomorrow we will leave at 9:30am and go to the orphanage to pick up Baby Neil. Then at Noon, I will have to go back to Kemerovo to get his passport and papers for the embassy. (Lucky me)

Then we will pack up tomorrow night and leave back for Moscow Saturday morning for a 7:40am flight. That will be fun.

Again, thank y’all for the prayers through all this. Obviously they were answered. We will post pictures tomorrow after Gotcha Day!

Until then, we’re going to try and get some sleep considering we only slept about an hour last night.

Love,
Neil’s Mommy and Daddy