7.11.13 It's Official - She's ours!

2 years of paperwork & appointments
78 friends and family support
6 days of visits to the foster home
30 days of temporary custody at our apartment
2 visits from the social workers
2 trips to Budapest
29 rounds of Fagyi (ice cream)

...all for one little girl. Gianna Ibolya is now an official member of the Harrington family!

We left the apartment that we've called home for the last 40 days this morning at 6:30, to drive about an hour to Nyireghaza where the guardian office is. Kids were a little excited to be moving on. Can't say I wasn't a little relieved also.

Met with the social workers again so we could review their reports that they had written about us. Everything was all good, and they asked us if we wanted to proceed with the adoption. That was a no brainer - YES! We signed some papers and we were given 6 copies of the decree. Voila! Instant addition to the Harrington clan. She's officially ours now!! We went downstairs to get her new birth certificate printed. Here she is holding the new birth certificate listing us as her parents.

We walked around the corner to another office to handle some other paperwork that our facilitators took care of for us. By the way - Lifeline Children's Services has been amazing, and all of our facilitators here (Rita, Adam, Victoria (social worker), and George not shown) have been fantastic for us. Couldn't recommend them enough! Monkey especially likes Rita :)

 Then we were off to Budapest, a 2.5 hour trip. We had to go to the Hungarian DMV as I call it, to get her Hungarian passport. Somehow George and Rita worked their magic and turned a 6-8 hour wait (no kidding!) into 5 minutes. I told you they were GOOD! We'll pick up her passport in the morning.

On Monday we go the the American Consulate to get her American passport going (she'll hold dual citizenship, which is cool), and pick it up Tuesday morning. Then we are free to come home!!

Catching up on some pictures I couldn't post before, here are some from our 30 days in the apartment.