Hang-Ups

We had hoped to have a finalized packet sitting in the office of the Dept of Education в России (in Russia) by now, but what would an international adoption be without a hitch along the way? Until the adoption I was ignorant to the idea of the "apostille" (different from "apostle"). For anyone else that was sailing in my same unaware boat, allow me to explain. A notary public is he or she that verifies that you are the person signing the document. They place there little stamp and/or (**here begins problem**)crimp on the pages and sign themselves. After that, Russia requires that the notarized documents be apostilled by the office of the Secretary of State which is the verification that the notary is legit. Seems redundant but so not up to me.

SO. Two weeks ago, we notarized-and-apostilled our hearts out on about 40 documents. We overnighted that sapling to our agency, CHI, and Anna promptly sent it to Jeff City. A day later, we received a copy of a fax from the SOS's office saying our notary used THE CRIMPER and her registry number was not embeded with the embossed image. REJECT.

That's right. Even though the notary also used an ink stamp with said number, the use of the un-numbered crimper cost us 2 baby-waiting weeks. ARG. We have since re-printed, re-signed, re-notarized, and re-mailed our packet to the capitol and are waiting for what we hope to be a returned packet of apostilled paperwork. We are crossing our fingers extra tight that there are no issues with this packet as we chose a different notary... Now, I don't want to send a gender-biased message here so I will leave out pronouns BUT.(The notary) had large hands and (the notary) used a well-inked stamp and a gel pen. (The notary) was not conscious of the undried markings and (the notary) dragged (the notary's) hands across the page time and time and time again! Double ARG. I hope that the recommendation that "your documents be neat and unwrinkled and free of stains or smudges" is a lenient one!!

At any messy rate, we trust this set-back is due to divine timing and will patiently await the perfect referral <3