Monday, March 30 2009


We woke up this morning with the anticipation of court. Luda called us and told us that Gene would pick us up at 9:30. We then drove to the inspector's office to get some papers and then to the court house. When we got to the court house we found out that an Ukrainian couple was scheduled for court the same time we were. Who would have known? Another, delay. So we waited and waited about an hour. Then it was our turn to go in. It was in a small room. The judge and two officials sat behind a desk at one end of the room. We sat across the room from them behind a micro-phoned podium with Luda on a long bench. To our left on a bench sat the representative from Caleb's orphanage, Svetlana the Inspector, and Natasha our lawyer and friend. Then, there was the court reporter. Most of the proceeding was just the judge reading over the documents, very quickly. Paul and I had to stand up and say our names, our birthdates, and where we lived. Then there was more about the children's medical records and if we understood their conditions. Then Paul and I had to tell what we were petitioning the court for. Basically, that we wanted to adopt both children and become their parents. It all took about 20 minutes. Then we left the room for about 5 minutes for them to deliberate and then returned to be awarded the children. The judge wished us well as did all the representatives. We just said "spah-see-bah" a lot. Then we were done.

ANNOUNCING…….

DEIANNA MARIE CZEROPSKI and CALEB ALEXANDER CZEROPSKI

Deianna is pronounced (Dee-ah-nah) and is her birth name. However, here in Ukraine it is spelled Diana and we knew that it would be pronounced incorrectly if we left the spelling the same, so we chose to change it so that it would look more like the way it is pronounced here, because we thought it was a pretty name with the Ukrainian pronunciation. Marie is the middle name we gave her.
Caleb is the name we have given him and Alexander is his birth name, but Alexander in Ukraine is given the nickname Sasha and that is what he is known by here. Of course we felt like Alexander was more masculine so that is why we chose to retain it for his middle name.

It was a great relief and we were excited to have court over with. We took Luda, Gene and Natasha to lunch to celebrate. We had a good visit as always.

We will now ask permission for Deianna to go with us tomorrow afternoon to celebrate outside the orphanage. Even though we are their parents, we are not allowed to take them permanently until the ten day waiting period is over and we have their new birth certificates in hand. They will probably only allow us to take her for 2 hours. Caleb will probably not be allowed to be taken from his orphanage because they are afraid that he would bring some kind of sickness back with him.

More to come tomorrow including PICTURES of our newest family members!!!