And Now We Break for an Important Aside… and Then Finish the Story

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Originally uploaded by jakeyd.

This is how Long Swedish Stories are told

Galina had previously told us that the judge at our hearing (see July 11 posts) is transferring to another court as of Monday. So he wants/has agreed to issue our order tomorrow (Friday, the 22nd), notwithstanding the fact that it won’t really be final until Wednesday, the 27th – the legal 15 days after our hearing. If the judge had not gone along with this idea and/or suggested it himself, getting the order and the new birth certificate would have meant that Galina would have had to deal with a new judge whom she doesn’t know and who doesn’t know the case. We have repeatedly been told that custody will not be awarded until after the order is final, and that, in all probability and/or to be polite to the orphanage, we would have to wait another 3-5 days for Otis’ passport to come through.

….. OK, back to standing outside of the baby house being mad at each other. Galina, through Zoya, tells us that the orphanage doctor says that there is an infection of some sort running through the orphanage, and that the doctor thinks that since we are getting our order tomorrow, we should take the baby tomorrow since he’s not infected yet. (The odds of there actually being an infection are pretty slim. After a month here, we are starting to understand when we’ve made friends who want to help but have to concoct a cover story to cover their asses.) So assuming he does not develop this mysterious infection tonight, we get custody tomorrow!