I spent a long, very long, day Thursday in Columbus getting all of our adoption docs authenticated for our dossier. This was the final step before sending it off to Kyrgyzstan where they will approve us for adoption of JJ!
The Republic of Kyrgyzstan needs to see that the documents we are providing them are authentic, and therefore need a seal from the State of Ohio before they will be accepted. The State of Ohio won’t accept the forms until they are authenticated at the county level, and the county won’t accept the forms until they are notorized by a notary public (can you see the stress level involved?). So, in the end, each of our documents ended up having 3 different seals – one from a notary public, one from the county, and the final seal from the state.
My cousin Carrie (bless her heart!) offered to go with me so I didn’t have to make the trip myself. It worked out great because she needed to stop at her office HQ near Columbus to pick up office supplies anyway. We woke up bright and early and left our houses at 7:30 a.m.
Our first stop was in London, Ohio so that we could have our State Police clearance form signed at the county. From there we drove to Columbus and had all of the papers authenticated. On the way down we received directions from the ever-so-enthusiastic security guard, who was more than animated when telling us that the nearest Kinko’s is located at Spring and High.
We spent over an hour and a half at Kinko’s making copies of all the documents, being careful not to remove a staple, make a tear, or alter the pages in any way, shape, or form. (Doing so can cause the entire packed to be invalidated). From there we needed to find a local branch of my bank so I could purchase money orders for the document processing (no personal checks allowed) and translation.
Once we had the money orders in hand, it was time to find a FedEx in order to ship my package overnight. It was about 4:30 by this time and we needed to move fast! We drove from Columbus to Dublin, Ohio and not a FedEx in sight. After driving all that time and going from point a to points b and c and d, my brain function began to wither and I finally found a post office, which lead to a momentary lapse in judgment. Happy to just have found ANYWHERE at all to ship the darn thing, I decided to send the package through the US Postal Service – Priority Express ($33!!!!) Needless to say, my package has not yet arrived…lets not forget that today is MLK day, therefore, no mail. I couldn’t sleep at all Thursday night and laid in my bed wondering if I made a major mistake by not using FedEx for delivery. Now that it’s Monday and my package still has not arrived, I can safely say that yes…it was a HUGE mistake.
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