Stephen is officially a Godone-Maresca child!!!

Yes!!! On Tuesday, November 9,  in the early morning, I checked my e-mail, and found the GREAT news!!! What a relief!!! And---Stephen will be home for Christmas!!! I'll be traveling so as to arrive to Sofia on Dec. 12, and Dec. 13 will be the great date, when I'll be able to pick him up. The greatest date, the date of his actual homecoming, will be sometime during the following weekend (Dec. 18 or 19).

Our prayers have been answered. Thank You, Our Lord, His Blessed Mother, and all the saints whose intercession we had asked for!!! Particularly, thank you, St. Anthony, St. Jude, St. Gerard, St. Maximilian Kolbe!!! Thank-you also to my dad and my grandparents for their prayers from above, much closer to God!!!

We cannot be any more excited!!! We hugged each other, jumped for joy, and there were even tears out of emotion.

The time had finally arrived to tell Thomas and Nicholas that they had a new brother--and they also jumped for joy!!! They had seen Stephen's picture many times, had heard about him, and had participated in the greeting video that Catherine, our movie expert, had prepared for him before Trip No. One--but for the first time yesterday, now that everything is 100% sure, they were told that Stephen would be one more brother to them. And, together with the rest of us, they couldn't be happier!

And--I had forgotten to say it: now I am officially a mother of six!!! (We can't wait until I can say I'm a mother of 8--but during my second trip I intend to somehow tell Maximilian that he also has a family, and that I'll be back for him and Philip. . . and I hope to be able to meet Philip, by the way.

God bless everyone,

Lillian / The Godone-Maresca Family

Court Date Was Scheduled

Hello, everyone,
Yesterday I learned from Toni that our court date had been scheduled. I cannot say when that's going to be, though--because I myself don't know yet. I would entirely understand if some of you cannot avoid a condescending smile or even some good laughter when reading this, but, yes,  I had asked Toni to keep me updated without telling me when the exact court date is going to be. Otherwise, we would not be able to tolerate an even higher level of anxiety than the one we have all the time. My mom would die from hypertension, and for Catherine, Gerard, Warren, and I, studies and work would suffer even more. That said, it obviously means that they did suffer already by now.

Toni is really an angel. I also asked her to try to anticipate in her captions the contents of any e-mail containing any update--so as to spare me the anxiety of opening any new communication without having any idea of what the message would say.

The court date may need to be continued, though, because unfortunately our case was assigned to a judge who requires those stupid reports from Social Services--and we're desperately praying and praying to still be able to have Stephen home before Christmas Eve. Every day that goes by means a little more anxiety building up.

Well, let's put it this way: Stephen is about to come home to a crazy family--where everyone loves him like crazy already.