Setbacks

This past week has been a major stress-fest for us.

On Monday, we got an email from our agency telling us that our dossier had arrived, but that there was a problem. And this problem was a bit on the major side. When we got all of our documents notarized, any that did not have a state seal already (birth certificates, background checks, marriage license), had to have a typed page attached to them stating that it was a true original or copy. That page was then notarized. I was the one responsible to type that notary page, and well, I wrote it in 2014 because we planned on having everything notarized then. We ended up waiting longer to get our I-800a approval, so we didn't end up notarizing everything until 2015. Well, I didn't notice the date saying 2014 until AFTER we got home from having all those pages notarized. The notaries had noticed and had simply crossed out the 2014 and written in 2015. The rest of the date was hand written in, as in the ________ day of ________ 2014. So, I didn't think it was too big of a deal to have the year changed in pen. The notaries obviously didn't care and neither did the apostille process as that was all done without a word being said.

That all doesn't matter, though, because our agency thinks that Ecuador will make a big deal of it. SO, lucky us. The dossier arrived back in the mail by the end of the week and is currently sitting on my desk, waiting for me to do something about it. I just haven't been able to bring myself to re-do it all yet. It's so much work and so much money (the apostille process was $450-ish last time, so we'll get to pay that again. Yippee.) UGH.

So that isn't fun.

That same day, we got a bill for $700 for something else. Then, a few days later, our car started acting funny (same car that died on me in Provo a few months ago in front of a client's house. Obviously this car is a gem...) and we took it in to find out that it needs some sort of new gasket (who knows- I don't even know car lingo). It's been in the shop since Thursday and that is going to cost around $1700 and take until mid week next week.

Fabulous week, huh?

I don't even have any pearls of wisdom to add to make this all come out okay. It's usually my pattern to not write about things until I can add the positive perspective. I really am an optimistic person in general. But, right now, it's just kind of crappy and discouraging. I guess that having to redo our dossier will buy us some time to re-save that money, but that's not really that helpful to think about at this point because we are talking about the life of a child here. Adding to the time it takes to get her home is definitely not a good thing.

Anyway, onward and upward...