It's Official! Andrew is our son!!

WHOO WHOOO!!! God is so good!! It's official, Andrew is our son as of today. We just returned from court today and the judge officially declared Andrew as our son! We are so happy and excited to be parents at last. Andrew is our forever son, at last. How truely blessed we are to have Andrew as our son. It's hard to express what we are feeling emotionally.



Today, when the judge asked me about why we wanted to adopt a child from Ukraine, of course the emotions started to flow. Alla told me not to cry. I controlled myself as much as I possibly could, but when your dream is at the final stages of coming true it's hard not to get excited, emotional and thankful to God for all He has done throughout this whole process. The judge also asked some questions about our finances, home, education and work which then helped to calm me down. And then he asked if I wanted to ask him anything and then I knew it was time to ask him if we could adopt Andrew and to change his Russian name to the name we chose for him. Well, the tears of joy and emotion were flowing again when I asked the judge if we could adopt Andrew and change his family Russian name to Millilo and to change his first name Andrey to Andrew Lawrence. I was surprised at how emotional I was when I asked him this. I was laughing and crying at the same time. Robert gave me a tissue to dry my eyes. The lawyer of the orphanage stated to the judge that she has seen with her own eyes how much we love Andrew and that they were tears of joy. The judge then asked Robert some questions regarding his work and Robert also stated that we obligate to register him at the Ukrainian Embassy after the adoption and understand that Andrew will be an Ukrainian citizen until the age of 18 years old. He will also be an American citizen once we hit US soil when we return home.



As of today we are parents, however, they didn't waive the 30 days waiting period before we can bring Andrew home with us. Robert and I have decided that it would be better for Andrew to stay the extra 30 days here in Ukraine with him to continue bonding with him until we are officially allowed to bring Andrew home. We will be staying at the same hotel, however, we will switch to a larger room with A/C. Alla is setting everything up for us regarding the same driver to take us back and forth to visit with Andrew everyday and take us to the market or pharmacy or whatever we need since she won't be with us during the 30 days. She will check in with us from time to time and visit us once during our stay. Alla has been wonderful through everything with this whole adoption and we've made her as one of Andrew's babushka's (grandmothers). She has helped taken care of us and Andrew and helped us through all the legalities and we praise God for her and Cathy Harris and Valentina and all of the Ukrainian Angel groupies for all of the Godly wisdom that they've provided for us. God directed us to Ukrainian Angels halfway through our adoption process and let me just say that the wisdom and favor we have received through this group has been exceedingly and abundantly far above what we had asked for.



For this child we've prayed and this is the petition which we've asked of Him.