Rutt

So I think we've officially chosen an attorney. We are going with the lady who was the first one to tell us (and the one to tell us in the most detail) about how the bilateral agreement doesn't apply to this adoption. We got an email from her today with an engagement letter we have to sign, along with the amount they'll be charging us. Cheaper than some US attorneys I guess - $220/hour, but we have to prepay 10 hours for a retainer. We're of course happy to do it as long as it works! We feel pretty comfortable with this firm. The attorney we have direct contact with is nice enough, and seems to be very knowledgeable and thorough. Her English is perfect, too. And even though she's the primary contact for the case, it will be her, another attorney and the top partner of the firm who will be working on the case. It's a huge firm - 6 or 7 partners and about 80 attorneys. So it seems like our attorney (who has the nice Estonian first name "Rutt", and looks like she was recruited to law school from a modeling agency, along with all of the other female lawyers in Estonia) has a good amount of support even for things she won't know herself.

Once we can get the payment to them then they will get started, first of all by contacting the MSA. The MSA has a heads up and has promised to give the laywers whatever info they need.

That's all we have on that today... More tomorrow we hope!

Sunday morning we got an email from Katya saying that she was very upset because Roman said he didn't want to go to America anymore. Judging from the tone and content of her email, I told Jason it sounded to me like they got in a fight and Roman just said that to make Katya upset. So we called Katya just to make sure everything was ok and find out what in the world would possess Roman to say that. I was right - they were fighting and Katya was hysterical. Roman said what he thought would get the most reaction out of Katya, and it worked! She was freaking out. So we calmed her down, talked to Roman, who confirmed that he did in fact still want to come. We told them to stop fighting and told Roman not to say that again. Anna was a big help talking to them, too, to help us find out what was happening. She told us after we got off the phone that Roman was mad at Katya and said it only to make her cry. It's sweet, though, that the thing that makes her the most upset is anything having to do with not coming here.

Everything is fine now. Katya's emails this morning say that they are getting along again and Roman agrees to go to America again. LOL In the meantime, it seemed that she understood everything Jason said to her on the phone in English. She was answering him and not being bashful the way she usually is with English. So we exchanged a few emails this morning in English to test her out. She understands and writes English a lot more than she let on. But if you recall, this isn't the first time we caught her knowing more English than she seemed to. :)

We took some more pictures of Anna yesterday that I'll post up asap. She's tall and cute! Everyone comments on her never-ending legs. She's almost 5 feet tall and she's only 9 1/2! Like me, I guess. But she's all legs, for sure.

All for now!

Love,
Molly