Wow! We have had one busy and fruitful week, although it did not start out that way. On Monday, Rob took our remaining dossier documents to the Williamson County Clerk's office once again to be certified, and once again, we were denied. Apparently, the notary we used did not know the correct month or day that her commission expired and what she had put on our forms did not match with what the county clerk's office had in their records. I was at a co-worker's baby shower when Rob called to give me the news. My mind was swirling with thoughts of all the work I had put into those forms and how I would have to fill out all of them again. I could hear him saying over the phone,"It's going to be okay. Please don't cry." I don't know how many times he had to say this before I actually pulled myself together enough to agree with him.
The fixer in me began formulating a plan to get everything done and done correctly as quickly as possible. After all, a little boy in Bulgaria was depending on his mommy. A certain quote from Dumbledore in "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" kept seeping into my thoughts. "You have no choice. You cannot fail." For those who don't know me very well, I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan. The words were true. Indeed, I had no choice but to start over and trudge through, so that is exactly what I did.
That night, I took our daughter to karate and then we came home to do homework. While our daughter was working on her spelling words and reading at the kitchen table, I sat across from her and worked on my dossier. By the time Rob came home around 11:00 pm from teaching his last class, I had finished them all and had gone over the dossier checklist at least twice to make sure that I had everything that we would need.
On Tuesday, Rob had to go to Carthage for work, so we decided that we would go to the notary on Wednesday when he got back. This time, we decided to use a notary at the Davidson County clerk's office and then all we would have to do to get the documents certified after the notarization would be to walk across the hall to another department. I cannot tell you how wonderful everyone was to us at the clerk's office. They were all very nice, helpful and expedient after learning that we had to go to the Secretary of State's office that day as well. Less than an hour later, we were on our way to downtown Nashville to the Secretary of State's office to get all of our documents apostilled.
In all, we had 21 documents that were apostilled. Later that evening after dinner and another karate class, we went to our local Staples store to make four copies of every document. The originals would go to Bulgaria, and the copies would be for our records and for Bethany Christian Services. We had no idea how long it would take to copy all of the documents with the apostilles stapled to them (we are not supposed to remove the staples). Therefore, we had sorely underestimated the time, and the store was about to close. Rather than gather up all of our paperwork and drive 25 minutes to a 24-hour Kinko's, Rob politely asked the store manager if we could stay to finish. The manager generously agreed, and we were done 20 minutes later. All I can say is "Thank you Staples. You have got a customer for life!"
The mission continued today. On my lunch hour, I laid the paperwork out on my desk and checked and rechecked the documents for the dossier. Then I was off to the Bethany office in Nashville to hand deliver our precious cargo to our case worker. When I walked out of Bethany's office after delivering our dossier, I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I also knew that we were one giant step closer to meeting our little boy. A few hours later, our case worker emailed me to let me know that our dossier would be overnighted to the main office in Grand Rapids tonight, and after approval, it would be on its way to Bulgaria early next week.
Once this happens, I am hoping and praying that our referral will not take long, especially considering that we were told last week that Bulgaria had informed our agency that it was very anxious to get our dossier. I am excited about getting our referral for obvious reasons, but also because we get to see new pictures and possibly a new video of our son. Everything we have now is a year old, and I am sure that he has grown and changed a lot in the last year.
So, what do we do now besides wait? We begin working on our grant applications and on our next fundraiser. Details to follow soon!
The fixer in me began formulating a plan to get everything done and done correctly as quickly as possible. After all, a little boy in Bulgaria was depending on his mommy. A certain quote from Dumbledore in "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" kept seeping into my thoughts. "You have no choice. You cannot fail." For those who don't know me very well, I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan. The words were true. Indeed, I had no choice but to start over and trudge through, so that is exactly what I did.
That night, I took our daughter to karate and then we came home to do homework. While our daughter was working on her spelling words and reading at the kitchen table, I sat across from her and worked on my dossier. By the time Rob came home around 11:00 pm from teaching his last class, I had finished them all and had gone over the dossier checklist at least twice to make sure that I had everything that we would need.
On Tuesday, Rob had to go to Carthage for work, so we decided that we would go to the notary on Wednesday when he got back. This time, we decided to use a notary at the Davidson County clerk's office and then all we would have to do to get the documents certified after the notarization would be to walk across the hall to another department. I cannot tell you how wonderful everyone was to us at the clerk's office. They were all very nice, helpful and expedient after learning that we had to go to the Secretary of State's office that day as well. Less than an hour later, we were on our way to downtown Nashville to the Secretary of State's office to get all of our documents apostilled.
In all, we had 21 documents that were apostilled. Later that evening after dinner and another karate class, we went to our local Staples store to make four copies of every document. The originals would go to Bulgaria, and the copies would be for our records and for Bethany Christian Services. We had no idea how long it would take to copy all of the documents with the apostilles stapled to them (we are not supposed to remove the staples). Therefore, we had sorely underestimated the time, and the store was about to close. Rather than gather up all of our paperwork and drive 25 minutes to a 24-hour Kinko's, Rob politely asked the store manager if we could stay to finish. The manager generously agreed, and we were done 20 minutes later. All I can say is "Thank you Staples. You have got a customer for life!"
The mission continued today. On my lunch hour, I laid the paperwork out on my desk and checked and rechecked the documents for the dossier. Then I was off to the Bethany office in Nashville to hand deliver our precious cargo to our case worker. When I walked out of Bethany's office after delivering our dossier, I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I also knew that we were one giant step closer to meeting our little boy. A few hours later, our case worker emailed me to let me know that our dossier would be overnighted to the main office in Grand Rapids tonight, and after approval, it would be on its way to Bulgaria early next week.
Once this happens, I am hoping and praying that our referral will not take long, especially considering that we were told last week that Bulgaria had informed our agency that it was very anxious to get our dossier. I am excited about getting our referral for obvious reasons, but also because we get to see new pictures and possibly a new video of our son. Everything we have now is a year old, and I am sure that he has grown and changed a lot in the last year.
So, what do we do now besides wait? We begin working on our grant applications and on our next fundraiser. Details to follow soon!
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