Bureaucracy...why oh why

Hopefully as the holidays are coming to a close I will be able to blog concurrently with actual events but now I am just catching up so bear with me that the dates of many of the recent posts won't necessarily reflect the actual dates.

The past couple weeks have had their highs and lows...we rushed to get many of the documents completed within 2 weeks of getting the checklist from LH. This included a new Home Study and visits, notarized letters from our employers, a letter from City Hall regarding home ownership, physicals and completion of medical reports by our doctor, criminal checks, marriage license, and numerous other items. We took our large stack to our bank and had everything notarized within a couple days (we couldn't get it all done in one visit as they were too busy). Paul took a 1/2 day off from work on 12/19 to head into Boston to the Secretary of State's office to have it all apostilled. An apostille is a certificate with the MA seal and ribbons and certifies that the notary is authorized to do their job and is required by many foreign countries to "authenticate" the document. Well apparently the MA SOS has changed the rules since the last time we adopted and is strictly enforcing very specific wording for signature witnessing and copy certification. All but 4 of our 28 documents were rejected (the only 4 to be accepted were our Home Study documents - their notary knew the new rules). No exceptions, no get out of jail free card. We needed to redo just about everything....lovely.

We had been trying to get all the docs to our new agency before Christmas as they were planning to get our dossier submitted to the MOE right after the Russina holidays were over in mid-January. I contacted our agency with this new delay and she relayed that as long as we could get things in by end of December or very early in Janunary we might still be ok.

So over the weekend we re-printed all the docs and started the process of getting new documents from our employers, city clerk, etc with the required notary wording. We also found a friend who was a notary as we were trying to get this redone quickly and before the holidays. We were able to have everything but one document redone by the 23rd and our friend came over that evening and we were able to re-notarize the docs.

We were feeling pretty good and thinking this didn't end up causing too much of a delay. Ha!! As I was putting Alexander to bed that night I realized that I never checked the expiration date of our notary's commission. I raced downstairs to find that it expired in February 2009. When we adopted Alexander, the notary's commission couldn't expire for at least a year from the date of the document. Yikes - I was a bit worried but our new region was not as strict and I hoped that this might not be an issue. I emailed our agency director and she replied that it should at least be 6 months but that we should go ahead and submit these and worst case they ask us to redo in February. So to me it seemed like we would need to redo either way and I was preferring to wait until February so that we could get registered and in the queue...and I was pretty sick of seeing these documents by now.

But alas no good deed goes unpunished...Yesterday, the day after Christmas, Paul again took the train to Boston and presented the docs to the SOS office. He asked them to look at them all before he left them to be apostilled (usually takes a couple days when you have more than a few). They said the wording was now fine BUT there was a new problem. Our notary didn't stamp the documents - he only crimp-sealed them. What?!? Are you kidding me? This had not been an issue before but of course no surprise as nothing was an issue before and now EVERYTHING is. So Paul called our notary from Boston (poor guy - Paul and our notary!) and asked if he had a stamp. He said he did and we thought OK we will just get him to stamp it and move on. Paul had the presence of mind to ask him about the stamp as the SOS had mentioned what the stamp needed to include. Of course our notary's stamp did not include the required contents. Yup, once again we needed to redo...for a third time!! Luckily the employment letters and letter from City Hall were not affected as different notaries had done these and they were all set.

When Paul got home, I reprinted everything again, made new copies in record time and called our bank. A woman who did a lot documents for Alexander's adoption was actually in the bank on Friday (she hadn't been in a while) and agreed to do everything for us yesterday afternoon. She had a crimp-seal, a proper stamp and her commission doesn't expire until 2011. Good freaking grief!!!! The upside I guess is that we won't need to redo these in February....

So Alexander and I will take the trip to Boston on Monday and see what new rules we have not adhered to....hopefully though we will be lucky and have them accepted. Otherwise I will break into tears with child in tow...maybe that will work...nah this is the government after all.

Christmas 08 will sadly be remembered as "the notary holiday"...thank goodness we have these days off to get this stuff done and oh yeah celebrating the joy of the season. But seriously we did have a good Christmas and it is always a joy to watch the excitement on Alexander's face. I still look at Alexander and often remember in excruciating detail some of the dark moments in bringing him home. Numerous trips to the notary don't come close to any of those moments and if this is the worst we will be incredibly lucky.

I will post again if and when we are successful with the notary and get these documents finally sent off to Russia! Happy New Year!!!!