Paperwork

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork.......!!!

Will I ever be happy when all of this paperwork is done?.  I have been working for 7 months now on documents that will eventually be our dossier.  Now you ask why 7 months?

Well there seems to one delay and re-vision after another.  Some of the documents were re-done several times over.  Not all of these documents personally originate with me.  So that makes it more difficult. 

We had to get approximately 6 personal references.  Three were required by our home study agency.  Three were for our placement agency.  And they both had different requirements that must be met in each reference letter.  Yes, the standards did get intertwined and some of our faithful friends had to rewrite their letters for us.  We are so grateful for all of you standing by us through this.

Now that our home study is complete I have been working this week on getting our I-800A application and documents gathered and sent out.  Praying that it does not take long to hear from USCIS about an appointment.   We are going to actually try a "walk up" for our fingerprinting instead of adhering to the appointed time that they send us.  Hoping that this will cut some time off getting our I-797C approval. 

Our last document that needed county certified was completed this week as well.  We took our home study to Stark County and within a few minutes we were finished at that office.

I had called the Ohio Secretary of State's office on Wednesday morning to make sure that their Cleveland office was still operating and was told that it was.  I even continued to ask the woman on the other end of the phone several questions making sure that my trip to downtown Cleveland would not be wasted.  After we left Stark County we immediately headed to the Ohio Secretary of Sate to have all of our documents certified.  I was so excited to be at this point of the process. 

We found a perfect parking space right next to the building that we needed to visit.  Hard to believe for this area of town.  As soon as we enterned the building the security officer asked which office we were there to visit.  We told her and she went on to tell us that Secretary of State no longer had an office there.  In fact, they closed it over a year ago!!!!

I was NOT happy at this point.  She was telling me that the only office left open was the one in Columbus.  And that woman told me just a few hours before that the office in Cleveland was still there.  We drove way out of our way to try and get these documents completed and that was not going to happen. 

I even called the Secretary of State's office again.  A different lady answered the phone this time.  I asked her also about the office in Cleveland.  She went on to say that the office had been closed for quite some time.  I let her know that I had been told that the office was still there and had traveled to that destination to only find out that it was no longer there.  So she not so politely told me that "no one in this office would ever tell you that".  I wish I had recorded the former conversation.  Oh well.....!!! 

I overnighted our State documents this morning.  Hopefully they will be processed soon so that I may get them sent out to the appropriate Embassy to be authenticated. 

And the process continues on...........