We're home!

We spent two days traveling - two nights with no sleep! - and now we are home!
Court went well, and we are now the parents of Charles Gabriel Andreev Meyer!

On Tuesday, our facilitator and translator met with us before court to tell us what to expect. Apparently, in our region the judge is quite thorough. Then we sat in the hallway for about an hour and a half before we finally got started, an hour late. We were actually hoping we'd start late, because then we would get asked fewer questions because the judge would be in a hurry! In the courtroom we the judge, 2 jurors, the secretary, prosecutor, social worker/inspector, baby house representative, our facilitator and translator, and us. I was very nervous! It went smoothly though. I was the "speaker", so I stood and talked about our family, our home, and why we wanted to adopt Charlie. One juror asked us about our home, one asked if Brennan was our biological or adopted son. The prosecutor asked why we wanted to adopt, because we were so young and could make more biological babies. (We got MANY comments about how young we are during the whole process!) The baby house rep and the social worker talked about Charlie's records and the fact that no Ukrainians wanted to adopt him because of his health conditions. The judge and jurors left to make their decision, and everyone else left too, because they knew the judge would say yes! And he did, of course! He came back in and announced his decision, told us good luck, and that was it. The whole thing took about 40 minutes, and that includes a lot of formalities at the beginning. Our translator said "You just gave birth!" :)

After court, we went to visit Charlie, then got on the train to Kiev. It's really hard to sleep on the train, but I set my alarm just in case. I set it for half an hour before we were supposed to arrive. I did fall asleep somewhere in the early morning, but about 20 minutes later someone was knocking on our door! The train lady handed us our tickets back, but didn't say anything. Ken started to get ready to go, but I looked at the clock and saw we had an hour and a half left. I was mad because I had finally fallen asleep and then was woken up for no reason! I snuggled back in and tried to go back to sleep, which was impossible. The train started slowing down, which was weird because I thought the next stop was Kiev. Suddenly, I remembered that I had never changed the time on my phone for daylight savings time! So, we WERE about to stop at Kiev! There was about 5 minutes of frantic packing and getting dressed. We were ready when the train pulled in! Our driver was waiting for us outside and helped us order breakfast at McDonald's. We stayed there for about two hours, and then drove to the embassy and sat in the car for another hour. By then it was 9am and we could go to our appointment in the embassy. Finally, we made it to the airport! I was not looking forward to the airport. I always cause trouble because of my pump. I usually get a pat down and they swab my hands and pump. But I don't speak Russian or Ukrainian, and so I didn't know how I was going to make it through security! If I hide my pump well enough, I can go through metal detectors, but in Ukraine they had the body scanners. The security woman did not speak any English and had no idea what a pump was! At first she thought it was a phone, and told me to put it through the xray machine. I showed her where it was connected to me, and she had NO idea what to do with me! She called another guy over and they stood there examining my pump and trying to figure out what to do! Another security officer saw what was happening and asked me, "Insulin?" I nodded and she yelled something at the first two workers, and told them to let me through! So I made it through alive. :) Next time, I am going to have a card with me that says "I have a medical device" or something like that. I can say "diabetic" and "pump" in Russian, but that doesn't help when they don't know what a pump is! At least now I know that the word for insulin is...insulin. Hopefully that will help next time!

We made it home around 1:30am. We picked Brennan up from my mom's house in the morning. He was so happy to see us! At first he was confused and overwhelmed, but that only lasted about 30 seconds. He kept sitting in his daddy's lap and looking around with a HUGE smile on his face. He didn't want to sit with me very much, but I was expecting that. After awhile he would run over to me, back up into my lap, sit for about 6 seconds, then run back to his daddy's lap! He did that a few times, and then he brought a book over to me to read, so I got a little more snuggle time that way. Brennan has been SO happy today. He keeps smiling at me for no reason at all. I think he's pretty happy that we're home. :)