Judgement Day

{March 17, 2011}

Happy St. Patrick’s Day – and you’d have NO idea here that was the case…not a whit!  Oh, and my ‘lil Sis Kristin is pregnant with her first baby and had an ultrasound today…it’s a girl -- so excited for her and Jimmie!  And this is the day 17 years ago that Eric asked my parents’ permission to ask me to marry him!  It’s a big day.

So, about that judge.  We were told to arrive at “court” by 9 AM.  Which court?  Apparently our driver knew where this was and felt confident how to get to “court.”  We weren’t sure the whole time we were driving there if he was going to the right place.  What if we ended up at traffic court or small claims court?  At 8:30 AM he pulled us up in front of this regular looking 5-story office building on a regular looking street.  There was a sign out front that said Ministry of something.  Looked official.  There were rope stanchions out front on the sidewalk as if they were expecting large crowds, but there were no people standing in line.  The front glass door was swung open.  Inside were several women at what looked like a security guard desk inside a large lobby.  They peered out at us wondering what we were doing.  OK, this could be the place.  But it could also be traffic court.

We looked quizzically at our driver.  He could tell our hesitation.  He leaned over and rolled down the front passenger window and yelled a question to the women.  He gave us their response, “They aren’t open yet…10 minutes.”  Of course, 10 minutes!  We’re still not sure this is the right place, but we’re trusting.  Trusting.  Trusting.

So now it’s 8:45 AM and we’re going in – no more waiting.  But still no people.  Hmmm.  Trusting.  We walk excitedly into the lobby area and these women are still wondering what we’re doing.  I was expecting a “host” or a “maitre’d” to warmly welcome us to adoption court and clap us on the backs for participating in such a wonderful endeavor, or maybe someone checking names off a list, or to see our attorney whom we haven’t even met yet (have I mentioned that’s another story?!?).  No such luck.  “Court?” I hopefully ask.  They shrugged.  “Is this court?” Eric asked louder.  “Are we in the right place?”  We’re panicking.  I’m looking around for signs or people or anything – there’s nothing.  Blank walls. No people and especially none of the people in our adoption group staying at the other hotel.  OK, time for a new tactic.

“Adoption?”  I raised the antee.  “Ahhh” they unanimously responded smiling and pointing their fingers up.  “Third Floor.”  Oh, relief.  We’re at the right place.  We raced up the stairs and I mean raced.  We’re reached the third floor and are still totally disoriented.  And I’m totally out of breath.  Addis is at 7,500 feet so we’re actually taking high altitude pills while we’re here, but those can’t help you breathe when you’re freaking out!  We’re in a building that looks like it was built in the 70s, but resembles a Gestapo-era building.  Stark, bare.  No signage.  We’re seeing a long hallway with lots of closed doors.  Like a doctor’s office building, except no working elevator, carpet, fake plants in pots, or paintings on the walls.  One door at the very end is open.  We hear people talking…in English.  That’s it!  We race down the hallway and into a room.  There we were, stopping the conversation again…late to the party, again.  1 ½ chairs were open on the far end of the room – we’ll take those.  A lady moved her purse so the other ½ chair was opened up and Eric could take a seat too.  It was 8:50 AM.

I surveyed.  There were about 35 chairs placed around the perimeter of the room.  The center of the room was open.  The walls were completely bare except for a self-made printed sign that said “Silencio.”  A 2” high well-worn wooden platform was pushed up against the windows.  These were cracked open for circulation.  Torn, pink vertical blinds were tied to the side on just one window.  I thought perhaps someone would stand and make announcements from the platform, or perhaps the judge would stand or sit there. Turns out it was never used, except as a place for more people to sit.  And more people came.  We counted.  About 90 or so all standing in the middle.  Everyone from our adoption group, of course.  They were all the ones in chairs and we were glad to have gotten the last seats.  Some people from France and Spain came.  Some locals trickled in.  They mostly hung around together on the platforms.  They looked sad or scared.  This was, after all, adoption court, and they weren’t here to adopt any babies.  That made me sad.  It was 9:20 AM.  Everyone was nervous.  I wondered what Kate was doing right then.  I wondered what the kids back home were doing.  I knew what Eric was doing…nervously twitching his leg, that’s what.

With a jolt, a side door opened from an adjacent room I hadn’t noticed before and everyone hushed.  A name was yelled out and people started shuffling through the crowd toward the door.  I could see the top of the door close.  Conversation quickly resumed.  The “Silencio” sign went unheeded.  We still didn’t quite know what was going on, but as the door kept opening and closing with new names being called out, we quickly surmised that this was how it would go.  They call our name, we go behind the door, a few minutes later we leave.  Okay, sounds good.  The agency had given us a list of about 8 questions that the judge would ask us, after asking to see our passport and checking it against our file to ensure we hadn’t sent “fill-ins” in our place and just decided to stay home instead.  The questions were things like, “have you met your child?”  “Do you realize this is binding and forever?”  “What kind of training have you taken to prepare?”  “What does your family think about you adopting internationally?”  That kind of stuff.  We were ready.

Then they called our attorney’s name and he rallied up half of the group. They went in as a group.  Hmmm. Interesting.  They came out a few minutes later all smiles and said, “It’s not that bad.  You’ll be fine!”  We walked in with the 2^nd half, en masse.  A clerk took our passports and walked them to the other side of the long rectangular room to the judge, who was sitting at a desk.  You know, like the kind you have at your house.  Just a desk.  On the desk were haphazardly piled high stacks of 8 ½ x 14” grey folders each filled with about 1” of papers.  The judge was wearing street clothes and a scarf.  So was the clerk.  We were told to sit down in the chairs.  She started opening up the folders and looking at the top paper, then closing the folder and randomly, cursorily looking at another folder as she asked us questions.  These were given to us as a group.  It was as tough as "do you realize you are sitting in an exit row?  Are you willing and able to assist in an emergency?"  And everyone in the group says "yes" to all the questions.  Eric added a smile.  He’s good at that.  But the judge wasn’t looking.  She was opening up each passport and then closing it not comparing it to our file or anyone in the room.  Just opening and closing.  She has hundreds of these cases to do, every day.

And that was it.  It was less than 5 minutes and no one was addressed by name or with any specificity.  We were ushered out; the clerk handed the stack of passports to the last person out and that was it.  We had passed court (not really, actually, there is one letter missing from the organization like our CPS which oversees adoptions – they’ve had some political upheaval in the last 2 weeks that has thrown monkey wrenches into everyone’s cases, including everyone in our group.  We’re hopeful that they will follow through on their commitment to us and 800 other cases to get that precious letter to the judge so that we can officially pass court, in the next 2-3 weeks). 

Our group was hugging and shaking hands and congratulating one another.  I was dismayed. Seriously?  All this way and all this build up for this?  Certainly I was happy we had passed this hurdle, but felt seriously robbed.  Robbed of my 15 minutes with the judge.  Robbed of 10 days being away from my family.  Robbed of $5,000.00 for this trip.  When Ethiopia announced almost a year ago that they were implementing a 2^nd trip (it used to be a 1 trip event and you never attended the court proceeding; that was all done months before you got there to meet and pick up your child and go home), it was a sucker punch to the stomach for all of us going through the process – we had signed up for a 1 trip country and they just changed the rules of the game on us.  But we forged ahead, knowing it was making the process better for children.  A judge would be interviewing families and ensuring they were “fit” for adoption.  So we got on board, and prepared for the interview.  But this?  The entire point of this trip, other than to have precious hours with Kate, was for court.  And we got 5 minutes shared with 6 other families and nothing related to our case?  I had lumps in my throat as we descended the stairs and said farewell to the group.  OK, well, that’s it, then, I guess.

Other than a visit to the attorney’s office, I can’t really remember what else we did after that.  Maybe the pictures we took doing it will remind me.  I know we ended it by going straight to bed when we got back to the hotel, around 8 PM.  We were emotionally hitting a wall.