Day 4: Tuesday, 5/24

Today is adoption day!

Again we woke up pretty early and, of course, the anticipation of the day wouldn't let me fall back asleep. The schedule for the morning was pretty simple – get up, get ready, go to court. The other couple staying at the MIR rented a car for their stay and generously offered us a ride to court. Claudia was picking up the birth moms and babies and we were to meet them there around 9:45. On the way to the courthouse we needed to stop and grab some cash at the ATM so we left a little early and ended up arriving around 9:30. We were told we could wait inside the courtroom so we hung out for a while and chatted. Just before 10:00 am the Gordon, Claudia, and the birth families arrived and we were ready to begin.

The other family went first so we were again able to get a preview of how our hearing would go. When it was our turn Emi was first to take the stand. For Grace, when she's older and if she wants to see it, I recorded Emi's testimony. I only have a 1 GB card in my handheld recorder which is about enough to capture maybe 15-20 minutes of content so I turned it off during mine and Jeff's testimony and restarted it for the judges ruling. The questions are all mostly review of the myriad questions we've had to answer throughout this whole process, however, once I was up on that stand, I felt like I might forget my own name!

To make us feel a little more at ease, the judge mentioned that he grew up in Edina, MN. We knew this before and were told that he was a football fan... my worst fears were realized when he mentioned during Jeff's testimony that he, in fact, moved to WI and became a Packer fan! Despite this, he did rule in our favor and we became Grace's parents! It all seemed so simple at that moment and the long wait (albeit not as long as others) and mounds of paperwork just disappeared. The moment was lost on Grace as she not only slept through the first hearing, but also her own. At least I caught some of it on tape as I doubt she'd remember it years from now :)

Immediately after court we left with Claudia to get new birth certificates for the kids. We get 10 official copies of the original one and 10 of the revised one with her new name and listing us as the adoptive parents. The process took a while and, oddly, a good 10-15 other people arrived to obtain certificates for their own purposes. I wouldn't have thought there'd be such a need in a place as small as Majuro. When I went to the office in Minneapolis to get copies of Jeff's and mine, I think there might have been 2 others there at the same time. The office is pretty small, fitting no more than about 10 people standing nearly shoulder to shoulder, so a number of folks who arrived after us decided to come back later.

We then took Grace's birth certificates over to the Attorney General's office to get her Marshallese passport. That process went much smoother as all we had to do was drop off the forms, fees, one copy of Grace's birth certificate and one of the photos we so painstakingly obtained. Claudia said she'd come back to pick up the passports before 5 and give them to us at the celebratory dinner that evening.

In the past these dinners have been arranged multiple ways. It started as a suggestion from someone (not sure who) as a way to honor the birth family, celebrate the adoption and thank the officials involved. All great motivations and I agree with each wholeheartedly. Somewhere along the line the event grew in purpose and size – one family ended up with people attending who weren't actually connected to their adoption and a bill for dinner in the $400-$500 range. They've since tried to pull it back to the original goal while still being respectful of the communal culture in the Marshals. Now, someone from the CAA makes all the arrangements from the reservations to the guest list to ordering the appropriate amount of food. For those traveling in the future, we were told to expect around $250 a piece but the total bill for the two families was only around $220... we each only had around 10-12 people and half of them were children so that might have had something to do with the lower cost.

The night was both amazing and a bit awkward. Not being able to communicate well made conversation difficult. Unfortunately, the one person in the birth family we know speaks English well, Grace's bubu (Marshallese for “grandma”), could not attend because she had to work. Claudia sat at our table to help translate but she had other duties to perform so we did the best we could. When we arrived Emi introduced us to the two daughters who live with her and her parents, 3 year old Bertha (with a rolled “r” and a hard “t”), 5 year old Destiny. Emi's sister was also there with her two children, Alianna (4) and Callio (6). I'm not at all sure of the spellings but it's as close as I think I'm going to get so my apologies if they should ever have the opportunity to read this blog.

When asked what we wanted to eat, Jeff and I both asked Clauia to order for us. We're pretty open to any type of food and wanted to try some traditional Marshallese cooking. We each ended up with fish - mine was a medium sized, grilled red fish and Jeff got 3 small fried fish, each about the size of my hand... all the fish still had their heads. We also each received a plate of breadfruit soaked in coconut milk called “ma” (pronounced like May), pumpkin soaked in something (maybe the milk again), and another dish which is something also from the coconut but not the milk or meat... not sure what else there is in a coconut but there you have it.

We ended the night with wrapping up the leftovers and some group photos. If all goes well I hope to have a number of photos posted when I upload next. Goodnight for now!