Ah yes, when will we travel? That is the question we calculate and dream about every day/week! This is mostly a recap, but here's what we know coming up:
As we continue waiting, please pray for expediency! Pray for that God would have his hand on the whole process and the timing of everything. We are anxious to get our kids here so we can start the next chapter of our lives with them, and realistically, would like as much time to bond before school starts in the fall. (Kindergarten for Sister and maybe PreK for Brother) But at the end of the day, God knows what will happen, and people adopt in the middle of the school year all the time and figure it out. ps. This whole post I resisted the urge to say "And chances are, if you give him a glass of milk, he's going to want a cookie." The End. ;)
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Woohoo!!! We have been waiting since October for our "hard copies" to come from Taiwan! We finished our part of the Dossier packet months ago and sent it to our agency case worker in Seattle. We have been waiting for the OFFICIAL adoption contracts from Taiwan to come, so we can sign them, seal them, deliver them back to Taiwan, and then the family court process can start! After a horrendous stomach flu made its rounds through all 4 of us this week, we were lazing about the house on Friday, recovering on sleep and ab muscles. Then we got an email that our hard copies had not only reached the U.S., but would be arriving at our house on Saturday morning!! I (Becca) quickly got on the phone to set up an appointment with a Notary that would be open on Monday (President's Day) and the Idaho Secretary of State on Tuesday. Excitement! Then, the doorbell rang, and the big packet of documents arrived before lunch (Friday)! Well then by all means, let's get this done TODAY. It has been our goal to never have a step of the adoption process waiting on US. There is a lot of waiting in adoption (like 4.5 months for these contracts), but when it is in our hands, we try to get stuff done quickly! I called the bank to see if the Notary was in this afternoon and available. I slipped in that it was for adoption paperwork, since people are often excited to help when they know it's for an adoption! They said, yes he is and will squeeze us in. Called the Secretary of State to see if we could come today to get our Authentication/Apostilles, instead of Tuesday. Yes! Everybody changed into leaving-the-house pants for the first time all week, ate lunch, I threw on make-up, and we gathered up our paperwork, identification, and tablets to keep the boys occupied in the bank (we decided to go to the Notary at our bank branch, instead of UPS, since it was still a weekday). Nothing like adoption forward movement to get you off the couch of self pity after being sick! We waited quite a while at the bank, patting ourselves on the back for bringing entertainment for the children. ;) Normally we make an appointment and don't have to wait long at all, but there are usually only 2 chairs per banker cubicle, so the boys play on the floor even when there is no wait. We also chatted with another couple waiting to see the Notary that were working on their paperwork for a kinship adoption! It was finally our turn, we laid out the 8 documents we needed to sign and notarize, stamped, stamped, stamped, and back to the car! It took about 20 minutes to get from the bank near our house to the Secretary of State Office downtown, but we were proud of ourselves for being early to our 3:00 unofficial appointment. We arrive, step inside the small waiting area, and step up to the desk at the glass window. A petite nice looking woman turns out to be....rather surly. She tells us our documents are wrong. Can't accept them. Something wrong with almost each one of the 8. Of course my hackles raise, and I start getting defensive that these are the documents that our agency gave us and the country of Taiwan seems to be okay with them! Then I took a deep breath, Robert came to my side as soon as realized it was not going smoothly (he had been with the boys a few feet away) and I started saying nice tension-diffusing things like we are all on the same side, and I just want to understand what she wants us to do, and I am not a Notary so please help me understand what is wrong. Apparently, in order to Authenticate a Notarization she needs to see the State AND County on every document that the Notary stamps and signs. The Taiwanese documents did not have a blank for him to fill in the county on any of them, because - they don't have counties in Taiwan! We stack up our papers, leave, and get back in the car. We still have an hour and a half before her office closes, so we decide to give it our best shot. Also, I ask Robert if I am crazy or was I being rude (which I have a tendency to do) or was she??? He confirms that I was being very nice and she was being very unhelpful. God bless him. Robert makes sure everybody is buckled (again), and I call the bank to see if Brandon (our Notary) is still there, and he is, and everyone wants to be very helpful. We drive 20 minutes back to the same bank branch, Brandon immediately comes to help us, and we ADD county to these official Taiwanese documents that we were very hesitant to alter in any way. Oh and we add a notary cover page to our giant homestudy packet and just sign willy nilly on the front, since there's no place to sign on a homestudy! :P Brandon wishes us luck, we thank him profusely, and get back in the car. Now at this point, we are both tense, and I have realized that I made the grave mistake of bringing snacks for Jack but not water for anybody. So, we check the time, stop at a gas station, and I get chips and water for the kids who have been TROOPERS this whole time. We drive 20 minutes back to the Secretary of State Office to see if the not-so-nice lady will take our papers now. She is still not thrilled that they don't have the right language swearing that we are who he verifiied us to be, but she begrudgingly accepts them. I keep trying to say nice things and be respectful and cheerful, but she reiterates multiple times that if Taiwan doesn't accept them it's not her fault because she thinks they aren't done right. Gosh I hope she's wrong... we will find out soon enough if so. WE DID IT!!! We are so relieved. This is a huge step!!!
We drive (another 20 minutes) back home, and the kids are excited to play outside and be done in the car. We had a few more documents to sign that were almost entirely in Mandarin and did NOT need to be notarized or authenticated. Whew. Our agency provided a pre-paid overnight envelope to send them back to our caseworker in Seattle, so Robert offered to take it to FedEx. The closest location was a nearby Walgreens. Great! 5:26 pm Incoming call from Robert. I almost answered the phone "WHAT" because I seriously doubted he would call just to say he was done and coming home... but I held my tongue. He laughed and said "Today is all about secondary locations!" Walgreens is only a drop-off location for FedEx, and there pick up has already happened for the afternoon. Thank GOODNESS the walgreens lady asked if he wanted it to go out that night. SOoooo Robert headed to a real FedEx place and dropped off the envelope. And that is the story of how after 4.5 months of waiting, we had 5 hours of flurry of activity, and now we will probably be waiting another 6 months to travel to get our kids. :D I'll make another post about what the upcoming steps are, since this one got a bit out of hand with my dramatization!! |
AuthorAll posts are written by Robert or Rebecca. Maybe you can guess who's who based on the number of emojis and exclamation points!!! CategoriesArchives
February 2023
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