Maddening Paperchase.

When we returned from Russia from Trip 1 we figured that completing part 2 of the paperwork would be fairly easy since we got many things done before we left for trip one. Well this turns out that the universe has been conspiring against us. We thought that we only needed 2 documents and a few documents from our agency and to get our FBI clearances apostilled. Well getting those pieces of paperwork has been a nightmare. We knew that we needed a waiver request letter from our doctor, requesting that the 10 days be waived and a letter about our social worker from the state of Virginia stating that she was allowed to complete home studies in Virginia. This is because Virginia does not require social workers to have a license to give home studies. At times we have wanted to pull our hair out and others it just makes you feel like Yosemite Sam and just hopping mad. (Rasafrasen %$*&( %$&*&* blah blah varmints), so remember that sometimes life throws curve balls at you and you just have to overcome and persevere. In the long run we both know that it will be worth it just a huge headache right now. I am sure that others who have adopted have gone through similar issues. So here is the saga that has become our paper chase nightmare.

Well after trying for weeks to get a letter from the doctor who was our IA doctor we finally gave up and got the letter from our local doctor. We thought that since our IA doctor helped us with the referral she would be the best person to give an opinion on the waiver letter. Well we tried and tried and supposedly she sent the letter via regular mail after about 2 weeks but we never received it. Well after my wife having to resort to calling her every day we finally got a letter after almost a month via email. Although the letter that we received was obviously a canned letter and even had the wrong name in one place. We originally chose her since she was highly recommended and was highly knowledgeable of the Russian adoption system. However, it seems that she may have been too busy to actually give attention to all of her cases. Then we thought that we would be able to just have her email or fax the letter to us and we would get it notarized and apostilled certifying that this was an original letter from our adoption doctor. Well as it turns out they would not accept a letter stating this. So we have needed an original signed and notarized by a doctor and then apostilled. So we never would have been able to get her to do that as she seems to be too busy. So we should have just gone to our local doctor in the first place. Well we now have an appointment to get this completed tomorrow. It turns out that even though we had our physicals completed just before trip 1 we glitched and did not get enough copies so we have to see him to have more copies signed and notarized. So hopefully that will all be done tomorrow. Then we can get it apostilled and the entire remaining package sent off for part 2 of the dossier. We have sent in already 50 or more documents for this portion of the dossier.

We also had problems getting the letter about our social worker which we thought would have been a piece of cake. Well the whole thing is maddening but we will get through it and hopefully be able to travel back to Russia get our son soon.

Other glitches that we have had in this phase of the paper chase is we did not realize that Maryland has different laws for apostilles than Virginia. They have to be certified at the county level first then apostilled at the state level. Well one of the county certifiers did not want to certify one of the documents that was for our psychological clearance because the notary had not signed their complete name. So we had to get all these documents redone.

We also have had a few rejected because the notary signature expired on a few documents and also we had an improper notary block on one of the copies of a document as the secretary of state did not like the statement about a true and exact copy not signed by us.

Besides all this we are getting pressure from our agency to get the documents in as soon as possible and believe me nobody wants this to happen more than we do.

Well if everything goes right we will finally have completed all the documents required for the dossier part 2 this Friday.

In all I think that we must have submitted close to 10 pounds worth of documents because when I sent of the documents that we did have 1 original and 2 copies of everything that package weighed over 4 1/2 pounds and we have submitted at least double that amount all told. So it might even be as high as 15 pounds worth of paperwork that must be accomplished to complete the entire process.

We think that it will be approximately 1 to 2 months from the time that Russia gets the whole package that we will receive our court date. The sooner the better.