God is good.. all the time!!

Court started about 15 minutes late and I absolutely thought I was going to pass out. We enter into a small room where there is a little jail cell in it. We are introduced to the prosecutor who looks no older than our eldest son. Throughout the process he would be playing games on his phone. Then the judge comes in.. no robe and young.. we were told she was 35. Each one of us had to stand and say our full name, date of birth, place of birth,  current address and our occupation. We then listened as she read our rights out loud. At that point she asked one of us to stand. Prior to going in we decided that Dave would be the voice as I have been sick and my voice was not quite all there yet. First question- why do you want to adopt? Second question- Do you know about this child's diagnosis and can you deal with it? Third question- Can you afford to raise this child?

Then she began to read through all our documents.. when she got to one it was a sad moment. It was the letter of refusal his parents had signed at his birth. Anger that this letter symbolized his parents refusal to even give him a chance at a life.. they deemed him unworthy at his first breath. Then gratitude because had they seen his beauty and potential we would not be blessed to call him our own.

The final question from the judge- What is it that you come before this court to ask? Our response was 3 things- 1. That we are allowed to adopt this boy. 2. That we are named his parents. and 3. That his name become Joshua Dawson Warner.

It took a total of 20 minutes from start to finish. The judge granted our requests. I know you have seen him before but I am so very proud to announce our newest member of our family.. our beautiful perfect little boy:

JOSHUA DAWSON WARNER 

We had always planned on naming him Joshua Dawson. When we arrived in country we found out his name was Alexei Tokarenko. Apparently Alexei is shortened to Lyosha (lo-sha) here (go figure as if Alexei was long or something) anyway that is what the caregivers call him. On our first meeting we had to give the name we wanted and it was before finding out his nickname. So yes his name is Joshua but I have a feeling we still will be nuzzling Lyosha in his ears :)

Plan for us now- we have a mandatory 10 day wait period. We get the court decree in hand on July 12th around 10a. We are hoping to accomplish all our running on the 12th and 13th here (passports new birth certificates) and take a train on the 13th into Kiev. We hope to have our embassy appointments on the 14th and 15th and come home the 16th. That is if there are no snags. Worse case scenario we fly out on the 19th. Either way it is with our son in hand so that makes it a good trip home!!