We got it!!!!

We GOT IT!!!!!  We had the amended decree by 10:30 am.  Ni. took J2 in to the judge with her and walked out with it in less than 5 minutes!  She said he was her secret weapon!  BUT THEN, it wasn't official until the Head of the Court stamped it.  So we waited and waited and waited.  Two hours later, at 12:30, the guy rolled in.  In those two hours, we saw well over 30 people try his locked door!   All waiting for him!  These people have no sense of urgency!   FORTUNATELY,  Ni. was the first to spot him when he rolled in and chased him quickly to his office, to be the first in line.  Yay!  We got our stamp and were on our way again to the Birth certificate office (by way of Puzata Hata for lunch:).  We arrived around 2 and they told us the document had to be signed by the head of the department, who of course wasn't there.  They told us she would be back in 40 minutes...so we waited.  Thankfully we had plenty of electronics to keep busy:)  Finally, at 3:21, the lady rolled in.  After another 30 min or so, we went back to sign a document and a register book.  Then we waited more.  Finally, at 4:30, we HAD IT!!!!!   The elusive BIRTH CERTIFICATE!!  It was really neat to see our names in Cyrillic!  Лінч says Lynch!:)   Ni. did a dance as she came down the hall with it!!  We raced off to the notary and made it by 5.  Notaries here take FAR longer than in the US.  They read the entire document, type up their own, make several copies, make copies of my passport., etc. Etc.  She had never done this without both parents and using POA, so was puzzled by that and had a LOT of questions.  But FINALLY 45 min later, at 5:45, we had the notarization for the birth certificate!!!

Since it was too late to accomplish anything else, we called it a day and went to spend the evening with the B. Family, also here adopting, for BOGO Dominoes pizzas!  Mmmm! 

Tomorrow we go for the id code and passport.    We have heard from two other families that obtaining the id code was challenging…so it could be another long day or days….  we’ll see what’s in store for us nextJ .