Court Success

Since Bulgaria is 8 hours ahead of us, I woke up this morning knowing that our adoption court case had already been completed and somebody knew the outcome. I checked email before school...nothing, came home at noon to check again....nothing, after school...finally a simple message from Daniel at TOL:

with SUCCESS  :-)

Kay sent us a follow up email with a little bit more information...

Dear Mark and Gail, I understand that you have a new daughter! Congratulations! I am so pleased for you. We will start to get you organized to travel to bring little Miss home! Daniel will send you, if he has not already done so, the travel packet for the 2nd trip. We know that as an average, you can anticipate traveling four to six weeks after court. Until this is confirmed of course, we can not predict the actual dates so please be patient as we wait to hear from the team in BG. They have to obtain the actual court decree and then the new birth certificate: they will let us know when they are ready for you to come to them. Here is a typical schedule for the second trip.

Here is the schedule of the families in Bulgaria during their second trip:


Day  1 -- arriving in Bulgaria

Day 2 – trip to the orphanage to pick up the child

Day 3 – Submission of documents for passport. This is a new requirement. The family must do that together with the child. They all shall be accompanied by an interpreter to the police department to submit the application for passport of the child. This requirement applies to all Bulgarian citizens. The purpose is for all underage children to appear personally. The passport issuance takes 3 days.

Day 4 – visit to a clinic, licensed by the US embassy for the required medical examination

Day 5 – free time

Day 6 – receiving the passport

Day 7 – Interview at the US Embassy

(potentially an additional day here as the Embassy will not release the Visa until the next day on occasion: we will wait and see)

Day 8 – Leaving the country

Mark called from work to get the news..."Hi Daddy!" Then I started calling my side of the family--Mom and Dad, Kay and Tom, Jill and Roger. Mark will want the chance to spread the cheer, so I'll hold off a day on posting this and calling his siblings, so I don't spoil the surprise. Maybe  :-) It will be fun telling the rest of the teachers tomorrow at school.

I have so many questions:  Does Grace already know? When will they tell her? Can we send her something during the wait? How much notice will we have before we travel?

I am off to small group...Mark will meet me there after he finishes another 12 hour shift. Maybe we can call Kay when we get home.