Seriously???

Hello everyone! Today you get a guest blogger. Yep it is me, Brock. I have been avoiding putting anything on this blog due to the standards that I must live up to with Ashley's writing. So please give me a little slack with what I have to share.

Well today in court was less than a pleasant experience. Ashley and I both went over what happened yesterday with the court proceedings. We really felt that court today would not last for a very long and a favorable decision seemed like a no brainer..... cue the dark music. That was not what happened. We started court today in a different courtroom. It was more like an judges chambers instead of a courtroom. The first person that was asked to speak was the inspector. The only way that I know how to describe the speech that she gave and then the follow-up questions that she responded to was perfect. You could tell by the words that came out of her mouth the passion that she has for children. With so many people in the world that do not care about the welfare of a child or what happens to them in their life the inspector in our case is not one of those people. She said the things about our case that needed to be said but to our dismay they came on deaf ears. When asked about our time with Roman and who we are as people from her experience she told the judge that she has never seen people that connected with a child so quickly. She said it seemed as if we had been trained on how to deal with children. When in all actuality we were just doing what we felt was right. The inspector also spoke of the fact that we had brought a number of items to the baby home and that was not common when families adopt. "Typically families bring things to their own child they are going to adopt, this family brought toys and clothes to the other children in the baby home." To be honest with you when she said that statement it really hit home that the little steps that we are doing that are just because we want to do them are being watched by others. After the inspector was being grilled by the judge and prosecutor for about and hour and a half the judge called for a "5" minute recess............

I now know what Ashley means by saying it was like me saying there is 5 minutes left in the game, or by her saying that it will only take her 5 minutes to be ready....... Recess started at 12:35 court began again at 1:50. So this was the longest 5 minutes of either of our lives. By this time we had changed to the original courtroom we were in. The judge started back on the inspector. The grand scheme seems to have come down to they are trying to figure out the process of adoption that happened with Roman. Some of the details are not to be given out to everyone as Ashley and I have decided to keep this private, but here is the basics. In Russia, when a child comes into the position of being adopted they first must be offered to Russian families if they are not selected by a Russian family they then after a certain amount of time are placed on the international database for adoption. So here is the deal, Roman was offered to 10 different families, of those families only 1 family came to the baby home to see Roman and they did not want him. It doesn't mean there is anything wrong with a child that is not wanted, it just means that the family has selected a different child because they were wanting a certain sex for a child, or a certain age for a child, etc. After Roman was not selected he was offered to an American family. You guessed it, Brock and Ashley Williams in Bloomfield, Missouri! When we came to Russia in July we were given the info on Roman and went to meet him at the baby home in Kandalaksha. Once we said that we wanted to start the process of adoption with Roman which was during that trip he was no longer in consideration with any other families because he was our child other than some legal stuff we needed to complete. We never guessed that the legal stuff would take many trips to get paperwork and multiple trips to Russia.

So I continue with the proceedings, the prosecutor asked that they families that had been in consideration to adopt Roman be contacted to find out why they did not want him. "WHAT???? You have got to be kidding me!" Sorry, that was my internal voice when I heard that request. The judge first asked fo my opinion of the request. I first asked the judge if I could have a moment to speak with Ashley. After a brief family moment, I stood before the judge and told her that I am not in favor of this request. I told the judge that Roman has been in a baby home for a long time and these families did not want him. We are prepared to take on the responsibility of Roman and give him a great life to the best of our ability and we feel that the request is not in the best interest of Roman but having a family that loves him is in his best interest. Then Ashley was asked and she agreed with my statement. Then to the director of the baby home she agreed. Next to the inspector and she agreed and also added that this would be a waste of time and that the longer that Roman is in the baby home the longer it will take him to overcome his speech delays that are common with children in an orphanage setting. I was then asked when our visas expire (cue flashback) I advised her that they expire in March but they are a double entry visa and this is our second entry. The judge made some comment about needing to get another visa. I then spoke up, hoping that the judge would not be offended by my comments, and told her that for us to get here for court is a VERY difficult process. Which the judge acknowledged like she understood. Judge calls a recess. As we sit in the waiting area both Ashley and I were holding our emotions in as we had a flashback to 15 days before when we were doing the exact same thing. Surely this can't be happening again? Surely the judge is going to look at the situation and use rational thought......NOPE!

The judge called us back into the court room and advised us that she is going to call the court to rest. We will continue in about 3 weeks after the other families have been contacted. And the judge rushed out of the courtroom. I then slumped over the railing as it felt as if I had been cut in half with the excitement of being able to announce on my Facebook page that I am a daddy to the sheer defeat of this process continuing. I have never been through anything in my life that has been so challenging. I know that there are many things that people go through that are much tougher than this but this has been the toughest for me. I can't imagine the feeling of a parent when they hear that their child has cancer or when a spouse finds out that they have lost their partner in life. I know that there are things that people deal with that are much worse then what we are dealing with but it feels like we are parents and our child is trapped and we can do nothing in our power to bring him home to sleep in his bed, play with his toys, or sit in his highchair. We just want to have our baby in our arms and rock him to sleep and watch him chase after a dogs tail. Why does this process have to be so hard and why does it have to pull so much out of us.

After the proceedings we walked out of the courtroom and both Ashley and I were stunned. The rest of our "support" group were still in the courtroom. I told Ashley to wait for a moment and I walked back in the courtroom and asked everyone there, "Is there anyway that someone can go ask the judge if she does not want us to have Roman. If we could have an answer we maybe could at least have some peace. This is tearing us apart and we don't know what to do." As I said these words with tears in my eyes I could tell that they are not used to seeing a man at the end of his rope with tears in his eyes.

I love this child with all that I have inside of me. I want to be not only a good man as an example for his life but I want to be a good father that he can look up to with pride. I hope and pray that when we do get to the end of this Roman can look at us and say they did everything that they could for me. So that is it, WE WILL NOT GIVE UP UNTIL WE ARE TOLD NO! I know for some of you reading this that it may make no sense why we keep putting ourselves through this. The only way that I know to put it is if someone had your child somewhere you would do everything that you know how to do to get your child home. That is what is going on with us. Roman is our child, he is our little boy. We are literally going around the world and back again and again to get him home. We do not understand all the delays involved with this but we also know that God has a plan and we pray with faith that we will not get lost in the details.

Roman, we will be back again!