Three LONG Weeks and One Even Longer DAY!

We went to the orphanage daily for three weeks to visit Grant. Our time was spent enticing him to like us, or rather, tolerate us. He didn't come with arms wide open, but he didn't scream and cry every time we came either. He sat staring blankly at Eric maneuvering the toy cars around with no interest in moving them himself. He still hadn't cracked a smile or initiated playing with a toy. It was as if he had no personality, no feelings, just empty. We snuck him some Cheerios and were "caught" by the nannies and scolded. We were scolded for removing layers of sweaters while we played outside with him. We were scolded when we brought the wrong brand of diapers. We were scolded when through no fault of our own, we were late. But it was the late thing, that made me realize we were making headway with Grant. 

You see, one day we were about 15 to 20 minutes late. This particular visit was probably past the 2 week mark  and close to our court date. When we arrived at his room, the nanny was hollering and waving her hands in the air. I had no earthly idea why. We seemed to irritate them whenever we came. Our translator said that once the nannies told Grant that his mama and papa were coming, he had been sitting in a chair by the door to his room. They said he hadn't moved and sat there too long! They also said that "he thinks he is better than the other children because he now has parents". Ummm....okay! That little room had enough strife being mostly made of boys with only a few broken toys that they fought over. One visit we came to pick him up and Grant had a large knot on his forehead. I asked what happened and the nanny told us through the translator that, "He fight over a toy but he lost!".  Sheesh! 


I remember another visit. We went into the music room to play and Eric was determined to make him laugh. There was a large stuffed monkey that he was pretending to punch and the monkey "punched" back. Eric kind of looked like a clown himself trying all sorts of things which only made me laugh! Grant just sat and stared. Poor kid was probably thinking, "All the parents in the world, and I get these goofballs!". Considering that Grant hardly would ever move by himself, I picked him up and sat him in the little, plastic child chair in the music room. We  "played" and sang and read a book. We still had no idea if he could even walk. So when it was time to go, we kept coaxing him to move out of the chair by himself. We tried and tried but to no avail. He ended up crying and crying until he turned a lovely red color and had the nannies coming in to check on him. However, on the way back to his room to eat, we were "walking" him while holding his hands and he saw his favorite nanny. Although still no smile, he took several steps on his own. From the look on her face and the praise she gave him, I believe those were his very first steps! Not exactly something you expect to see when adopting a toddler! 

I posted this picture on a personal webpage right after we returned from Kazakhstan. Over the course of about 2-3 years, I had several families contacting me for the picture. They had done an internet search for pictures of their children. I can tell you that at least three of these boys have families. Two are here in the States and one in Europe. I have no pictures of Grant prior to us meeting him. My internet searched have come up with nothing. However, I was so happy to hear of the families these wonderful boys had and to give them a picture of their sons prior to their meeting. That's just amazing! You see the little boy off to the side in the walker. We never once saw the nannies take him out of it or let him play with the others. He was always separate. He appeared sick, tiny, underweight, and frail. It broke my heart the afternoon "T" brought in bananas for "M"'s birthday. All the other children sat at the table with their tea cups and 1/2 of a banana. He was left in the walker without the special treat despite our attempts to give it to him. His forever family contacted me for this picture. I asked how he was considering his state when we saw him. His father said he loves running around on the beach and has no special needs. It's nothing short of miraculous what constant love and nutrition can do for a child. How sad that there are still 143 million children just like him waiting. 

After the three week visitation, we headed to court. I was so nervous. We dressed appropriately. I even wore stockings and "no open toed shoes" as instructed. Our coordinator was actually there that day. A surprise, considering she never checked in and stayed at her house about 4 hours away. Don't even get me started on our non-English speaking translator, Lubyev. The court building was absolutely nothing I had envisioned. The president of Kazakhstan has beautiful palaces all over the place. They are gorgeous! The court building was an old Communist leftover building with broken tile, old worn seats, and drab looking. The court room followed accordingly. 

This is our Russian coordinator, the prosecutor (who actually was beneficial), and Eric and myself. 

My instructions were to not talk unless spoken to. I was told it was likely I would not even say anything. The judge was known for being "stern". Eric was instructed to do the talking. All Kazakh courtrooms (even for adoptions) have a prosecutor presiding in them just to make me even more nervous. 

"Your Honor" walked in with a stern face that probably hadn't smiled....ever. He asked Eric a lot of questions like: 
Why Kazakhstan?
Why won't you keep his Kazakh name?
Won't people wonder why he is your son when he looks differently than you? "They will say he is a cousin"
How much land do you own? Will he be required to work the land?
How big is your house? (We showed him a picture of it but he said that it could be a picture of anyone's house). Would he have his own room?
What do you know about Kazakhstan? Do you know who the president is?
Won't you treat your daughter differently than him?


Along with many other questions that my memory has failed me on. He then scoured the dossier for quite some time. He called our coordinator up to speak and that, my friend, is when everything turned sour. The voices between the two escalated louder and louder and louder. Then.....


         "Your Honor" slammed his gavel down and the courtroom was silent. Everyone started walking out and my heart hit the floor. I felt like everything was moving in slow motion. What just happened?


Why were we leaving and no one was happy? Were we denied being Grant's parents? What in world had gone wrong? 

Once outside, We were told that the there was some problem with our registration in the city we were in. (You have to register with the Kazakh government within 3 days of entering the country to give information on where you are living. This was our coordinator's job, who frankly was shady). The judge gave us 20 minutes to return to the courtroom to show him our boarding pass stubs from our flight into Astana or the adoption would be denied.

Seriously? Not because he didn't think we were good parents, not because we couldn't give our son everything he needed and more, not because we hadn't worked on a dossier for a year with an FBI screening and social workers coming into our home. Because of an entrance technicality, we could be denied our son. We fought so hard to find him. This simply could not be happening!
To make matters worse, after running to our coordinator's car, she hurriedly backed up and bumped into a babushka!!! I could not believe this nightmare. I kid you not....it was Friday the 13 of August! 

Our coordinator was not planning on stopping to make sure she was okay either. She started pulling away.  Eric looked over at me and I looked at him......"Get out!" I yelled with visions of a Kazakh prison in my head. "Make sure she's okay!" I yelled as he was already opening the door despite the car moving ahead. 

Oh my,  was the Babushka angry! She yelled at Eric as he was helping her up off the ground. She showed him her torn stockings. She was slightly scraped up but okay. Ironically, I think she was only angry because her stockings were torn!
Off we hurried through crazy traffic whizzing around cars, through lights, and parts of cement that weren't necessarily "road". I wasn't even sure if we still had the boarding pass stubs. Who keeps those anyway? It had been 3 weeks! I think God must have graciously placed them where we could find them quickly. We found them in the back of a drawer and rushed back over to the courtroom.

The judge once again saw us (whew, what a relief to see his stern face). He checked everything out.  And proceeded questioning.  It was then that Eric had to ask the judge if we could change our son's name to Grant. The judge made it very, very clear that he didn't want us to and that the American name would change his Kazakh identity.  Grant's Kazakh name has 20 letters in it just in the first and middle name alone! It can be hard to pronounce and even more difficult to spell. Eric was determined to win this battle though. I, the one who wasn't allowed to speak, was chomping at the bit with my angry eyes to try to get Eric to drop the subject. After all, we could change the name back in the States with the re-adoption! Thankfully, the judge asked me if I wanted to say anything. OH YES I DID! 


He was so hard to read. I couldn't tell if he was satisfied that we could make good parents for our son. I still felt as if he would find a reason to deny us as foreigners from adopting.  I felt the need to let it all out, to tell him that the first time I saw Grant, I felt the same emotions that I felt when I held our daughter for the first time. He was MY son and I was sure of that. He needed a mother to love him and care for him. I would do anything for him and I wasn't planning on leaving until I got him. Okay, so I said a bunch of other things to after which he actually showed slight emotion and thanked me for my heartfelt remarks. Yes, indeed, sometimes it takes a mother! We were granted our Grant, name change and all. Once again, we emailed home that same message of "It's a Boy!- Part 2". 

The court decree would not go into effect until two weeks after the court date. During this time,  any family that Grant may have had would be notified that he would be adopted, and they could appeal the ruling. We hadn't crossed every hurdle but at least we were headed in the right direction. It was going to be a very long two weeks........