The Adoption Frenzy Begins. . .

June 13, 2012:  After church, panic strikes!! Ha*ti has become part of the Hague Convention. Mostly, this is a good thing for adoption. However, when a country becomes part of the Hague Convention all documentation is done differently. And, to this point, we have collected our documents under the "non-Hague" regulations. YIKES! So, we need to be grandfathered in. . .time to start moving in warp speed. Thus, the week of extreme stress (of course this happens during a fundraiser, bday party, basketball camp, church camp, and finishing my summer hours at work)!

June 14, 2012:  Tim's 1st Trip to the Home Study Agency to drop of the last reference letter. Angel mails the I600A without our Home Study. It arrives to its destination on Monday, June 18. (The UPS lady knows me well!)

June 16, 2012:  Learn that our translation cost is going to go up because they could only find one person to agree to rush the translation, which means added cost.

June 18, 2012:  Tim's 2nd Trip to our Home Study Agency on the Northside to pick up our Home Study.

June 19, 2012:  1st Trip to the Secretary of States Office: Every notarized document has to be reviewed by the Secretary of State and "certified" by them. We had major problems. Several of our notarizations had to be fixed. One was unable to be certified. (Imagine: lots of crying, panic, and re-copying-which is difficult because the "seals" have been added to certify docs, and they cannot be broken! Just an FYI, we had to have 5 copies of ALL our originals. Then 5 copies of all the certifications, which then had to be individually stapled to all 5 copies). 2nd mailing for the I600A which has our Home Study. (extra mailing cost, BOO!)

June 20, 2012:  2nd Trip to the Secretary of States Office to correct a few errors they made on the certificates that were already done (UGH!) and get the one we still needed. Drive to Indy to pick up the documents from Tim so that I could start copying. . .Hello, UPS!

 The 5 copies and original

The Chaos in what we used to call the "Living Room" where we could relax. . .well, no relaxing was done in here for a good week!

June 20, 2012: Dossier mailed-CHECK-DONE

This is a picture of what I mailed. Yes, it's about 6 inches thick. No, it doesn't fit in an envelope. I've never mailed papers in a box! LOL!

Was it worth it?

You bet!!

Would I do it again?

In a heartbeat!!

And, in the midst of it all, Jesus showed up and gave me a lesson despite my tantruming!

(Wanna know the lesson? Visit me at www.engravedhands.blogspot.com