12/27/07 - Juliyana Anastasia Lebsack

It's offical, we had court yesterday and were granted the honor of being Juliyana's parents. As always nothing here is the same for everyone. We went to court and the Spanish couple who were adopting also had their case heard first. Their proceeding went fairly smoothly and after the hearing they were given a very quick descision.

We on the other hand were somewhat discombobulated from the start. This was the first time our facilitator had ever worked in this region and apparently the "Judge" needed a letter (before the hearing could start) from the US Consulate stating that the United States would allow the child to enter after the adoption was completed. So I quickly jumped onto the phone w/the adoption section at the consulate and they bent over backwards for us and got the letter to us in about ten minutes (wow!). That's got to be some sort of record for personnalized govt service and I want to publicly thank the consulate for their service.

Our translator also needed a complete copy of her documents (passport & document as a translator) so Konstantin had to do some additional scrambling to get these for her. Our hearing was very long and my job in the Coast Guard and Donna's as the director of a preschool did not translate well and had to be explained at length to help the Judge understand. It was also very difficult for the Judge to understand that Donna would be taking Juliyana to attend the pre-school which she directs. Initially the judge just thought Donna was going to leave her in the corner with some toys while she worked and of course she did not approve of that. This was very stressful for us as you might well imagine. The judge took a very long time to render her decision (15-20 minutes) which seemed like an eternity and even Konstantin admitted to being a little bit nervous about the outcome, but eventually it ended well (Colleen and Ali I have a very special new student for you). There were hugs and kisses all around followed by a celebratory bottle of wine with the director, the Spanish couple, and ourselves later that evening at the orphanage.

Our Best,

Donna and Michael