Court Day!

Day 3

Today was court, when the orphanage attorney would present our paperwork to a judge and he would declare us legally Vennela's parents! (The document stating this took considerably longer, but that's another story...) We met Vennela, a staff member (Sudakhar) and nanny (Lakshmi) from her foster home early in the morning and all headed to court together. We reached the car where they were waiting for us, and got in the backseat. Vennela was in the front and immediately reached back to us, so we pulled her into the back with us- and this explosion of pink tulle just came at us. Her foster home had taken her to pick out a special court dress, and it was... Something.

Our guide Kumar had warned us it would be a long day, and we were prepped with a backpack full of snacks and Vennela distractions. In all, she was a champ, we were really amazed. We sat in the court hallway for several hours waiting our turn, and it was packed with attorneys, clients and judges. We met another couple adopting a baby girl from the same orphanage. They were from Delhi, and their little one was less than a year old, but spent the wait strutting around the hallway while her parents chased after her, earning her the nickname Boss Baby. Kumar had taught Vennela how to let air out of a balloon slowly so that it makes that high pitched squeeze, and she chose to utilize that in the hallway on a huge balloon Geoff blew up for her. Parenthood, just a show death by embarrassment. Other than that we colored, played with stickers, Play-Doh, etc. until it was finally our turn to go into the courtroom.

The courtroom was packed, and we sat in the back, trying to keep Vennela quiet. It was really hard to follow what was happening, but fortunately Kumar was there and kept us up to date. After a while the orphanage attorney, Mamatha, flagged us to come up, so we came up with Vennela. Mamatha was talking to the judge in Telugu so we still weren't sure what was happening. Kumar and Mamatha had prepared us to answer questions from the judge, but after a few minutes Mamatha motioned to us to go back, and Kumar was also waving us out of the courtroom, so we headed out, confused. First the worker from the foster home, Sudakhar, was telling us we passed court, but we were skeptical. We seemed to be waiting for something but Mamatha hadn't come over to talk to us, so we weren't sure what was next. We ended up waiting a couple more hours, but fortunately Vennela opted to take a nap on my lap for the majority of that time. 

She was still asleep when Mamatha summoned us back to the courtroom, and after sitting in the back for a while again, we were waved up to the front (and carried up a still sleeping Vennela). This time Mamatha and the judge were clearly arguing, and it seemed like he didn't want to clear our case that day, but Mamatha kept showing him the law highlighted in her book that cases needed to clear within two months, and eventually he rifled through our paperwork and then barked some questions at us. It was way more nerve-racking than expected, and Kumar later told us this judge was new and it was not always like that. Eventually we were told to sign some papers, and then sent back to our seats, signed some more papers, and then Kumar said we could leave. Outside he clarified we had passed now, which was a relief. We thanked Mamatha profusely for her work, and then headed back to Vennela's foster home, since it was already about 4 pm.

We got to the foster home and brought out only coloring supplies this time, which kept things from becoming total chaos. 

After about ten minutes Kumar came in and said the orphanage had approved our foster care paperwork, and we just needed to go pick it up in order to take custody of Vennela. We agreed it'd be best to go get it right now while the staff at the orphanage was available, so we said goodbye and told Vennela we'd see her tomorrow. We opted to wait until the next day to take custody of her, and in hindsight were glad we did, as we connected that night with one of the foster moms who said they would hold Vennela's goodbye party the next day. We set the plan with her and enjoyed one last quiet evening before becoming parents!