Houston - we have a seal!!!!!!!!!

Hip hip hooray for good friends! My friend T. in NY just text messaged me that she got Marc's birth certificate sealed today. Do you know how awesome this is!? Have I mentioned it was going to take two or more months if I had to mail it back and forth? Oh yes, I know I have and you're all tired of hearing about that by now. :) I'm seriously doing a little dance in my chair right now.

Costs:
notary sig verified - $3
seal - $10
having a friend to save you time and anger management therapy - priceless

What a day...

I felt like we were trapped in that Simpson's episode yesterday. The one where they keep going, "YAAAY!.... Boooo...... YAY!!!.... BOOOO... Yaaaaay!..... BOO!"

Marc is on Spring Break this week and I work from home on Fridays so I have the flexibility to get out and run a few errands here and there. We dropped Fletch off at school and make our first task to stop at Walgreens to get passport sized photos for our dossier. The printer getting jammed was the first irritation of the day, but the day got so much worse that the Walgreens story isn't even worth getting into. (Booo) We did leave with a bag of 75% off Easter chocolate (Yay!) which I've already eaten a lot of (Boo). Costs: $16 (not counting the chocolate of course)

Next we run up to the police station in the mall and find out it's not open yet (Boo) but I did get to use the mall bathroom (Yay - I think?). So we continue on to the main police station for our city and they're able to give us a police clearance letter, on their letterhead, signed and stamped (Yay) but it's not notarized and they don't have a notary there (Boo). Costs: $14

The bank is close by, so we stop in to get everything notarized. My favorite notary boy is there (Yay) and I'm sure he'll just go ahead and notarize the police clearance for us. But he doesn't (Boo) and he also can't notarize Power of Attorney forms (double Boo).

On we go downtown to my doctor's office to drop off my original hand-written letter and ask him to have it typed instead and change some wording on it. The receptionist says "Sure, I can type that up for him! (YAY!) But he's off on Friday's so he can't sign it until Monday or Tuesday." (Boo) At least it's delivered and off my plate now. Speaking of plates we decided on an early lunch at our favorite Thai restaurant that's just up the street from my doctor. (Yaaaaaaay!!)

While there, I call our social worker to tell her about the whole police clearance thing and how it's only for the city we live in, not for the whole state like the dossier instructions indicate it should be. And also that they don't have notaries there, but it is stamped with the police dept stamp. We're told it has to be whole state and notarized (boo) but that the main Denver police department is only a few minutes from where we were eating lunch so maybe they can help (yay). We get there, park, and there's already money in the parking meter (score!) but they confirm what our p.d. said - each city only does clearances for that city and not for the whole state. If we want whole state, we have to go to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. (Boo Boo BOO).

20 minutes later we get to CBI, explain what we're doing, fill out a form and they say it will take 3 - 5 days to get it back (yay? boo? I don't even know at this point). I hand the lady an example letter that came with our dossier paperwork of what we need the letter to say. She blows us off "We have our own letter we use." I try to explain that Ethiopia (our agency? who knows?) has very specific wording that they want and could I please just attach this to my request so they know what I want? "No, our letter is professional and includes much more information that this. We know what we're doing." (boo hoo hoo) We leave, downtrodden, exhausted... Costs: $30

Back at home I try to salvage what's left of the day and get some work done. I actually got some good news about one of my candidates and a potential offer for a contract (Yay!)

But then I also got word / found out that:

• The CBI clearance is not right and they use "negative language" and the dossier instructions state that it needs to be on police letterhead, so it's just wrong in multiple ways. I guess I really already knew this before, because we've already gotten a CBI clearance. But come on, we KNOW that they are the only ones who do a WHOLE STATE CLEARANCE so what else are we supposed to get!? (Can you see me pulling my hair out yet?) (BOO!!!)
• The Letter of Exemplification we got with Marc's long form birth certificate is not what we need. We also already had a feeling that was the case, but when you get this news on top of a bad day it just makes it worse. I called the county clerk of NY again just to make sure (I've learned to triple check things by now) that this was the proper next step, how much money I needed to send and, oh yeah, what's the turn-around time again? FOUR to SIX #$%& weeks. (Booo Hisss....throwing tomatoes)

Luckily for me, I have the sweetest friend in the world who is also adopting and happens to work in NYC, so I am mailing the birth cert and letter to her and she's going to get the authentication and seal for us. (yay yay yay yay yay yay YAY!!!) I can't even tell you what a load that is off my mind. Otherwise we could be waiting 3 more months for these document.

A few minutes later I got another good outstanding work-related call (YAY!) and decided to press my luck by checking the mail. In it I found................. drum roll please ......

.....

.....

...my sealed birth certificate. (Yaaaaaay) It's hard to know whether you're happy or sad or just exhausted after a day like this. Either way, this was the only appropriate thing to do:

Total costs: $60

A light at the end of the tunnel

I keep feeling like we're "this close" but just can't quite get there. Like one of those dreams where you're trying to run, but you're running in place. Or you have to get to school but you can't find any clothes that match, then you miss the bus, then you try to call your mom but you keep punching the wrong numbers on the phone. Hmmm...maybe that's just me.

Anyway...

I got a message from UPS that they'll be delivering something from VitalChek today. Yes folks, that would be Marc's birth certificate - the long one, not the short one - with letter of exemplification. The one that I ordered on 3/17 and paid extra for to get it in 2 - 3 days. And if you have a calendar you'll notice that today is 3/27.

Marc is on spring break this week and has been painting his little heart out trying to get our house ready to put on the market. Tomorrow I'll give him a respite from painting and drag him to get our police clearances then to get all of our dossier documents notarized. Fun stuff - this should be better than Spring Break '89 in Daytona. I might even flash him or something.

You spin me right round baby right round

The NYC department of vital statistics has my head spinning right round this afternoon. Who knew that the hardest part of adopting would be getting a birth certificate!? Correction - *sealed* birth certificate....because I certainly have enough copies of our birth certificates by now. I'm going to be able to wall paper our living room with them soon.

After being transferred and being told to call different numbers EIGHT times, I finally got to a lady who could tell me how to get a sealed copy. They make it very easy for you (note the sarcasm there...). If you were born in New York, in one of the 5 boroughs, take note:

1st, you have to request a long form birth certificate with a letter of exemplification from the Department of Health. 212.788.4500.

2nd, you get that, then mail it allllll the way back to NY to the NY County Clerk where they will verify the signature on the letter. 646.386.5932.

3rd, you get that back, then mail it all the way back to NY again to the NY State Department of State, Certification Unit. 212.417.5747.

Well that was easy! (banging head against wall) Would it be quicker / easier / cheaper for me to fly there and courier the request around the city myself?

grumble grumble grumble....

Costs: $33.00

One step forward, two steps back

Do you have Paula Abdul stuck in your head now? :) Me too!

I am happy to say that we had our last home visit last night. Our SW came over to do the follow up on our home safety inspection and to meet Fletcher. HSI went well, no biggie there. Fletch was, well, Fletch. He wanted to show the SW all of his books. Then as she and I tried to leave his room to go chat, he pushed me out the door and told her "Get in here now!" Oy vey! It was cute because he wanted her all to himself to play, but my goodness, he sounded like a two year old tyrant. And we never say "get in here now" to him - where did that come from?!?! Oh well...I'm sure we're not the worst parents she's ever seen.

So she is finishing her home study write up this week, then we're waiting on medical letters and Fletcher's doctor's appt (this Friday) and we're DONE with the home study. We should be able to review it next week and get it in the mail.

Our minor setbacks were:

• As expected, my certified birth certificate was incorrect. We now have to send it back to FL to the Secretary of State to be sealed. Lucky for us, this is for the dossier and we do not need it for the home study to be complete.
• The notary stamp date on Marc's doctor's letter was different from the date on the letter, so we have to have that redone. His doctor is practically within walking distance from our house, so that shouldn't be a big deal to get redone.

Jackie's dr. letter is in the mail to us. Fletcher's dr. appt. is on Friday. My dr. forms are in the mail to us. We're cruisin'!

Costs: $20 for state seal