World-Renowned Jazz Trio Becomes Quartet

After a long wait in a hot, stuffy room; a change of prosecutor; many questions about Jim's passport; and a flawless speech given by Jim in Russian, Alexander William has been pronounced the newest member of our family! We are of course beyond excited and can't wait to get him home.

We were asked the standard questions Why adoption? Why Kazakhstan? Why not the US? Are you able to support another child? And Jim's favorite, Do you have any criminal acts intended with this adoption? However, the longest amount of time was spent going over the minutiae of Jim's passport.

When we got it renewed in 2001 the agency put the wrong birth year on Jim's passport. We didn't do anything about it until we started going through the adoption process and realized we had to get it changed so that all dates would be accurate. I called the passport office about this and the way they handle mistakes is to have you mail your passport in so they can print out a sentence on the last page that says it has been amended to reflect the correct birth year. I'll be the first to admit it doesn't look at all official. The KZ judge noticed this and started asking a series of questions: Where was your passport issued? When was it issued? Why didn't you get a corrected passport? Why did you apply for this passport? How long are US passports valid? After sweating a few bullets over these questions Jim answered them as best he could and the judge seemed satisfied.

Here is the English translation of the speech Jim gave in Russian:

"During the bonding period we have come to love this sweet little boy. We have decided to adopt a child and very much love this boy and hope to adopt this sweet child. We are placing our future into your hands. Thank you very much for your very careful consideration of our case".

Whereupon the judge asked Jim where he had learned Russian. After the pressure was off I joked with Jim that he should have asked the judge in response "Where did YOU learn Russian?"

We left the courtroom for a few minutes so the judge could render his decision. We all filed back into the courtroom and the judge pronounced us parents of Alex. Woohooooo! We couldn't be happier.

Tonight is the train ride back to Almaty. We are looking forward to coming home but also sad to leave this wonderful town, baby Alex (temporarily), and all our new friends.