A major and minor delay averted

Not too much progress on our documentation the past week.  We did start doing our online training, so far it's common sense, so that is good.  We had two possible delays arrive this week and we avoided both of them.  The first was regarding our fingerprints possibly being on the wrong form and having to be re-done.  Let me say, I am not in a hurry to go back to the jail to have that done again.  Thankfully, they decided to accept the ones we submitted.  Thank you DCI.

Part of the documentation process for international adoption is getting everything "apostilled" or authenticated.  Other countries don't just accept things being notarized, you have to get all your documents apostilled by the secretary of state from where they originate. Jerrod was born the state of Virginia, so that is our only non-Iowa document. Thought we were good to go with his original birth certificate, but we had a major misunderstanding about the definiton of  apostilled.
We thought all our birth certificates did not need apostilled because they have a state seal on them. Those are issued by the department of vital records, not the secretary of state. So you need to have an official birth certificate  apostilled .  OK, fine, no problem.  After reading the fine print, it says the state of Virginia will only apostille birth certificates issued in the last year.  Now that is a problem.  When Jerrod called there in October, they were processing requests from June (do the math - 4 months!!).  After a few moments of freaking out that we would be waiting 4 months for a new copy of his birth certificate everything worked out.  Thankfully, they have an online request service (thank God for the internet) that turns copies around in less than 2 weeks.  Super.  So, if you call or mail a request for a document you wait 4 months, if you go in person, they give it to you that day and if you order online - 5 business days (an extra $30, a lot cheaper than a flight to Virginia!). Whew - major delay avoided!  I'm guessing Virginia is so busy with all the geneaology requests.

Our social worker thinks she will have a draft of our home study this week, so still on track for our goal of completing our paper work this year.

Several people have asked about the time line.  The short answer is that we have no idea and no control (a good way for God to remind us that we are never really in control).  Once our paperwork is submittted it takes maybe a month to translate, then it goes to Colombia for approval.  That process is a big unknown.  I'd like that to take 1 month, but it could take several.  Then we are officially on the waiting less, which is currently "approximately 3 - 6 months". 

So, we are hopeful of going to Colombia in 2012! 

Thanks for reading.