Dossier Drama

The last 2 months have just flown by.  We have 5 days left before we send the package to the agency.  And a lot has to happen to make that a reality.

Turns our the homestudy update was no big deal.  We gave our social worker the changes, and she wrote it up.  However, we don't have it in hand yet due to a problem with the notary (who took a few days of vacation unbeknownst to the social worker).   We are supposed to have it by the end of the week.

Our medicals proved to be a bit difficult just because our doctor's office is in transition and had difficulty facilitating the write-up of our documents.  I had to provide a notary, as they didn't have one in the office.  Fortunately, Cliff has a former coworker who volunteered to meet me at the doctor's office (twice!) to get the paperwork done.  The first time we couldn't complete my paper, because the doctor's office forgot to order a required test.  The second time, they lost my paperwork, found it, and ended up having to re-do Cliff's paperwork due to an error, because we can have no mistakes, white-out, scratch-out on any document.  I have one final touch to add to my paper, and we're done.  Hopefully THAT will be simple.

We had 2 documents that we had to send out of state for authentication - one to Virginia and one to Missouri.   Those documents were generated by offices in those states and so had to be authenticated in those states.  I was nervous about getting them back in time, but both are completed and safely in my file folder.

Everything else seemed to be no big deal.  Just request and receive or copy and notarize.

The BIG drama happened last week when we realized that we would not have our federal background check completed by our submission date.  Who knew it would take 12 weeks to get an FBI background check????  It takes 10 weeks just to clear security and get logged into the system.  What??

For a while it looked as if we would lose the whole adoption over 2 pieces of paper.  Needless to say that was a really rough day.  By the end of the day we had devised a work around that would substitute a STATE background check for the federal pending the completion of the federal.  But then I had to figure out how to get a state check in a very short amount of time.  I called everyone I could think of - state senator, state rep, private investigator, to name a few - trying figure it out.

Then, after a desperate prayer for a miracle and a desperate comment on Facebook (of all places), my brother gently reminded me that he works for the Office of the Attorney General and might be able to find some way to get the background checks within our timeframe.  By Friday I had a name and a plan.  On Monday we hashed out what needed to be in the letters.  And this afternoon I had scanned copies of the letters and the promise that they were sent out in the afternoon mail.  I should have them Thursday.

As a backup, Cliff and I made a quick appointment last Saturday to have our fingerprints made again and submitted electronically to the state for print-based background check.  We were told it would be 5-7 working days (which would make us late with our document submission to our agency).  This morning I found out that the checks were run yesterday and the letter sent out today.  So we should have THAT letter on Thursday as well.

AND as a bonus, the fingerprints we did on Saturday will also be submitted to the FBI for federal background check, so we could have that letter sooner than the prints we originally sent to the FBI.

Drama, drama, drama!

So the long and the short is that assuming we get the State background letters and the homestudy update, AND everything is in the proper format, we should be able to submit our paperwork on time and stay on schedule for travel at the end of the calendar year.

Whew!  God is GOOD!