No border So, you PAPs & APs out there will completely understand this . . . others may find it absolutely insane. As stated in the previous post, I sent roughly 16 documents to the state to be Apostilled. They arrived this past Monday. How many times a day can a person check their FedEx account? Lots, I tell you. Lots. I got a call on Thursday from the Secretary of State's office letting me know that one of the documents cannot be Apostilled because the notary's stamp does not have a BORDER around it. Everything else is there . . . but . . . THE BORDER. Why would they even sell stamps that don't have a border at the notary store?! And, it is our mortgage letter - the one that we had to get redone. The woman was nice enough to contact the notary who broke the notary law of borders and asked her to send a new document directly to the Secretaty of State. I will check on the situation at the beginning of the week.
We have been endorsed!
All of the above doesn't matter a heck of a lot because we still don't have our I171H. I checked on that in the middle of the week only to find that DCFS had not given us their stamp of approval yet. Long story short - immigration now requires approval from Illinois DCFS (Department of Child & Family Services) before they issue the coveted I171H. But, the following day, our social worker sent me an email letting me know that she received our endorsment and was sending it on to Immigration. I am envisioning a day - maybe a week or two from now - when I open our mailbox and a stream of adoption documents pours out.
The dossier takes another trip
I have now started to refer to the dossier as our other child. It has now made its way to visit its grandparents-to-be and great grandparents-to-be. My grandparents are celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary with family and friends tomorrow - 65 years, 9 kids, more grandkids than I can count, and even some great grandkids (soon one from Kazakhstan). Happy anniversary to two extraordinary people!
10 comments:
That's even more crazy than having to sign everything in blue ink and to flod or crease the papers in any way. It sure is stressful getting all that stuff done. Hope everything goes smoothly.
Another quirky thing we found out about notary signatures: if her stamp reads Jane E. Doe and she signs it Jane Doe, they make you redo it. It's crazy—how are we supposed to know that????
Talk about crossing t's and dotting i's. Anyone who can get a sperm to an egg can have a child but in order to adopt one, you have to not only jump through hoops but make sure that everyone ELSE does everything right.
How absolutely, positively frustrating! Go figure, it HAD to be the mortgage letter!
well, what was that crazy notary thinking-leaving off her border!!
We could all get together and write a sit-com about all the stuff we have to go thru.
I'm glad you got it straigtened out and the apostille lady was so nice.
It sounds like your i-171h will be coming very soon.
No worries, I bet next week you get everything you need.
Deep cleansing breaths.
I think there is a group out there, whose sole purpose is to make parents adopting from Kaz totally nuts-- and I'm guessing your Secretary of State must be a member :) I had to have one of my documents re-notarized too because they thought her signature on that one doc looked different from the signature she has on file with the county. You are sooo close to being done with the paperwork-- don't lose heart!
No border on the stamp??? INCREDIBLE! That must be one of the craziest things I have heard! Anyways...that is so neat about your grandparents' anniversary...65 years?! AMAZING! Hope the party was a blast!
PS I love Susan's idea about creating a sit com based on the insane things we all have to do...but would we be the only ones who get it? Probably. Oh well.
I feel your pain. I have had to have my papers done over and over again. Its SO frustrating!!!!!!! My doctor asked how many times he was going to have to fill them out....ummm until you do them right.....
If you can get through this process without going insane, then you can get through just about anything!
Press on dossier soldier!!!
Smile,
Regina
Oh my! Someone needs to make a big ling list of all the DOs and DON'Ts. I guess that's why I'm reading your blog so I can learn but it sure would have been nice for YOU to have had that list in hand already! Seems like you are ALMOST there tho... hang in there!
:)
Monica
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