Another Round of Certifications

We had a wonderful holiday weekend. We had just enough fun outings to stave off the temptation to attempt to finish some household project. The only goal we had was to send off our dossier documents to the various consulates for authentication.

Dh has already made two trips downtown to have our various documents certified by the County Clerk and Secretary of State. That means braving traffic downtown, scrounging change for meters, waiting in endless lines, then trying to keep all the paperwork straight. He had to make two trips because he forgot two documents the first time.

So Friday morning I had the daunting task of assembling all the documents and determining which consulate to send them. You would think they could all go to the same one, but that would be much too easy. In order to truly confuse PAP's (Potentially Adoptive Parents), you have to send documents different places based on where the document originated. So dh's birth certificate has to go to a different consulate than mine. Then we have the documents we've created and our marriage certificate. It really gets difficult to keep it all straight.

So when I sat down to assemble the documents, I realized that dh had forgotten to notarize and certify our physicals. He had to scan them and print them the night I assembled the other documents and as a result, they were in a separate bundle in the folder and he forgot about them. Needless to say he was more than a little unhappy at the thought of yet another lunch break spent downtown with more documents.

All that being said, tonight we hope to send off the documents for authentication. One step closer to finishing this seemingly endless paper chase. Little Juliana at my feet right now reminds me it is all worth it in the end.

I do have a rant post in the works. I have become increasingly annoyed at how difficult (and expensive) the adoption process is. I can't imagine the outrage that would come from various organizations if we made those procuring an abortion jump through even one tenth of these crazy hoops.