Gotcha day!!!

Today was very busy and exciting. At 7 am K's foster mom picked us up and drove us all to her place, where we left K with "babcia" while we drove to court. Court was scheduled at 9 am but there were some short cases ahead of us so we waited. I was getting nervous! At 9:30 we were called in. The court room consisted of a few benches in the back, two benches that faced each other, and a podium facing the judge along with 2 jurors and a secretary. We sat on one side with the attorney and the prosecuting attorney was on the other side. Magda sat on the bench in the back with K's foster mom. After some papers and our passports were presented, it was time for one of us to go to the podium and it was our choice who went first. Mike hopped up right away and stepped to the podium! He was asked about why we wanted to adopt, what he does for a living, what bonding time was like, and what our children think about the adoption. He was also asked if big families are common within our family. My brother has number 7 on the way and when Mike told them that, they seemed to agree that yes, that's a big family! Next I was up. I was asked some similar questions and also what my plans are about going back to work. I was asked what we like to do in our free time and about my Polish heritage. They asked what city my parents are from and how I learned Polish. I was mostly able to listen and answer without translation, so I was pretty happy though I was so nervous! K's foster mom also had to go up, and she spoke so well of me and Mike that I got teary again. She is awesome! After that we exited to await the deliberation, which was actually pretty quick - when we came back in, we went over the spelling of our names, the city we were married in, and our daughter's name. They shortened the appeal period fromthree to two weeks - what an awesome group of legal officials. And then our adoption was granted! Gotcha day is officially here! Please welcome Katherine Emily to our family! Katarzyna is her birth name which we Americanized. Call her Kasia if you are Poliah, Katie if you are American. I do both. :) I will upload pictures later. For now, I will summarize the time after court because it was crazy! We booked out to pick up Katie and get to the train station and boarded the train 10 min prior to departure. This train we really needed ton get on because it was an express train to get me to Bydgoszcz. On the way it stopped in Warsaw and I had to say goodbye to my awesome husband. Someone has to hang with our other 2 kids at home! I stayed in the train with Katie and my aunt, cousin and nephew picked me up at the Bydgoszcz train stain. It was a 6.5 hour train ride and Katie was awesome! We rode first class and had a cabin to ourselves, which was a huge help I think. She is loving the family and I'm staying in a nice apartment close to everyone in the heart of the city. Hopefully we have a good couple of weeks here.