It's Done!!!!

Just short of the 3 month mark we have finished our dossier. I saw last night that FedEx had picked it up last night and I spent the morning hitting refresh on the FedEx tracking site. Luckily it arrived when my students were at Music so I rushed off to the copy store where it was being delivered.

Everything was authenticated (I was worried they wouldn't authenticate the document that the notary that expires Saturday).

When I first started this adoption journey I laughed when I saw pictures of peoples dossiers in their blog. Now that I have worked so hard to complete it I completely understand. So here it is, a picture of our dossier. :)

Were Getting Closer

I really like living in a small town but some times it really sucks. The Washington Secretary of State was lightning fast. We mailed our i-171h to be certified on Saturday, they received it Monday morning and sent it back out Monday afternoon. Unfortunately it took 2 days to get here even though I paid for overnight. I know, I know I am beginning to sound like a broken record. So of course since I work I wasn't home when they tried to deliver it today, so after work I went to the post office. The person working the route hadn't come in yet so they told me to come back later. I decided to drive toward home and see if I could catch her. I found her but she was done with the route and headed back to the post office so I followed her. There was a long line so by the time I got to the window she had unloaded her truck and I was able to get my document. Next I drove to a copy shop that has a FedEx outlet in it. We don't have an actual FedEx here. More small town woes. FedEx picks up at 3:00 here and it was after 4:00 so it wouldn't go out today. Living in a small town cost us 2 days (1 for the extra day to get the document and 1 because FedEx picks up before I get off work). The gentleman who worked at the copy shop was very helpful. He figured out it would save me money if I sent it to the Consulate via UPS 2nd day and then had it shipped back FedEx. I hope I don't have problems using UPS. I also found out that if you want to put in a prepaid return mailer it has to be sent to the copy shop not my residence. I don't know if that is a small town thing or standard, but of course my cover letter says to mail the documents to me in the prepaid mailer and then I give my address. Now of course it won't match but I can't imagine they will even look at the address.

But we are getting closer. This is the last step before our dossier is finished.

A Bit of Good News

I called our agency first thing this morning. The good thing about using an agency two time zones away is I can call at 6am. I can only handle so much fretting so it is good to get it over as early as I can. The person I talked to said that they haven't had any problem so far with notaries being expired when they get to IAD. The important thing is they get state certified and authenticated before it expires. She did say of course this could change at any time. I am going to send it through for now and cross my fingers.

Nobody said this would be easy

So I called around this morning trying to find a notary on a Saturday in our small town. I finally found someone at the bank and I was completely thrilled. I was struggling with the paperwork so we weren't able to leave right away, but we got down there just after 11:00. Everything was going smoothly, he checked our licenses, got our account number. We signed the paperwork and then he filled in the notary part. HIS NOTARY EXPIRES 4/22/07. That is like 15 days from now. I have no idea if that will be ok and of course since it is the weekend I can't call our agency to find out. The post office closes at noon so we decided to go ahead and mail it to the secretary of state. We paid for overnight both ways (of course there is no guarantees that it will come back in 1 day, I still have yet to figure out the post office). We have decided that Mike will go in a little late Monday so we can call the agency before he leaves to see if we have to get a new notary. If we have to I may have to call in a few favors at work so that I can leave to get it notarized. The good news is the paper was notarizing that it was a copy so it will be easy to redo. Just more postage and time.

Great News

We got out 171-H today. I have read it over and over making sure everything is perfect. Correct spelling, right address, approved for 2. Yep everything looks great. For those of you in the adoption world it took exactly 3 weeks and 4 days to get.

Now I just have to figure out how to get it notarized in our little town on the weekend.

I'm off to do the Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy Dance.