DENIED

Monday morning - The day started out bad with them telling us we had to be out of our room by 9:00, after telling us we had till noon yesterday. We had to call Alex, he arranged for us to have them until 3:00. We are both nervous to see the judge today and have spent several hours preparing a speech.

Monday afternoon - It is with much sadness that we write today. The judge did not find our papers satisfactory, we will not be bringing our girls home this trip. We had to wait for an hour before seeing her. She went through our papers thoroughly; Serguey looked at me several times, nodding yes with his head; then the bomb dropped we have been told that she does not like several items in our dossier and she did not even give us the opportunity to speak. As with 3 American families last week, she nitpicked small things in papers. She does not want Americans to adopt because of what happened last week. She told our facilitator if we came to court on the 28th, our adoption would be denied and we would have to start all over. Alex advised that we withdraw our papers and they will talk to her when she gets back from her vacation (6 week vacation.) If they do not make any progress with her, they will bring in an attorney to show her how our papers meet all the requirement.
Alex and Serguey both said our papers are in perfect order and would not have been turned down a week ago and that she is denying anyone who is adopting independently. This is all due to the murder of the little girl adopted independently from Irkutsk in North Carolina, this judge placed in the home and now feels she can not trust American families. We did hear that she signed a letter of intent to retire, but who knows, this could just be another rumor as in the past. We withdrew our papers and hope for a new judge in September.