Korea Court Trip - Day 5

Today was the day we went to court and spoke before a judge that has the power to grant us custody of our sweet Lyla! I was very nervous even though I have been told over and over how this was the easiest part of the whole adoption process.
We woke up around 7am (finally our bodies are starting to adjust to Korea time) and Todd ran downstairs to grab us coffee and breakfast sandwiches, while I got ready. We were out the door by 8:15 am and arrived at Holt at about 9. This was the first morning we took the metro without having to follow step by step directions on our phones. You could call us locals now. haha.

Our bus from Holt to court was a little late, so we got a chance to talk with some of the families and how their meetings had gone with their babies. We loaded up on the bus and headed to Gangnam for court. The nerves really hit when we had to sit down outside of the court room. We were the third family in line and both families before us said it went great as they walked out.
We walked in and a million things were going through my head. Our translator had us state our names and then he immediately asked why we hadn't brought Madilynn with us. We told him that we were going to bring her on the custody trip. Then he asked us what we thought about Lyla when we met her, if we were aware of all of her birth history and for us to state all that we knew, why we would want to adopt if we did not struggle with infertility, and then what felt like ten more questions. I was continually shaking and trying to remember to smile and nudging Todd so he would remember to smile. We were so relieved when we were told we were done. We said "thank you" in Korean and walked out.
We circled up with the families as they also left the courtroom and talked over all possible thoughts that could be going through the judge's mind. Then we got ushered downstairs because we were being too loud.
Then we went across the street and had Korean BBQ with all of the families.

Then we headed back to Insadong via a 45 minute metro ride and got caught in a 30 second torrential downpour. After we got changed, we rested for about 2 hours and then went out to dinner with some friends that were here to adopt their babies through another agency in Seoul. We ate in Insadong and talked about court, our babies, what life is about to look like, how God has provided, and so much more. We are so thankful for the community God has placed in so many moments of our adoption journey.