Now We're Cooking with Crisco!

Our Mini Dossier is notarized and now in the hands of Fred Smith's 1970s brain child! Whoo Hoo! Our home study copies arrived Saturday, and I spent Sunday afternoon completing the last remaining blanks on our regional apps and such.

Doug and I, with two children in tow, met Stephanie this morning to notarize all of our documents. She thought Doug was kidding when he told he he had a gazillion papers for her to notarize. Some 45 minutes later we were finally leaving her office. Thank you so much, Stephanie! I'm sure this is the case with all international adoptions, but definitely with Russian adoptions in the fact that you can't just find any notary. If your notary's commission expires before your adoption is finalized, then you get to redo all those documents again. Our agency recommended we use a notary that had at least a year left on her commission. All of the secretaries at Doug's campus had their commissions expire later this fall, so we couldn't use them. That would have been very convenient for us; however, Stephanie works at the administration building, and we are so grateful she agreed to do it. Of course, when Doug and I began signing the mammoth stack of papers, she probably wished she had waffled.

So, now these documents are on their way to Austin to get apostilled. (The notary of the notary.) We are using a courier service in Austin--thank you for the tip, Wendi! We are mailing our mini to them, and they will walk our documents into the Secretary of State's office for apostilling. If we mailed them to the SOS, the turn around is approximately 10 days--not including shipping time. By walking them in, we will get them apostilled immediately. This courier service will only cost around $25--give or take a few dollars depending on how long the guy has to wait. I will gladly pay that to speed up the process by two weeks! With our handy dandy Fed Ex account, we will have the courier ship them directly to Wyoming for us. If Kristi receives them by Thursday morning, our dossier will be on its way to Russia this week! (Any one notice the faith I am putting into a complete stranger? The control freak in me is having a spasm. Breathe Shelly!)

I have found another perk to living in Texas. For adoptions the SOS charges only $10 per apostille, and it caps out at $100. Seeing that I am sending 37 notarized documents for apostilling--and this is only for the mini dossier I may remind you--I toast the good man or woman who put that into the policy rule book--had to have been an adoptive parent! I've heard from other families in other states having to pay anywhere from $20 to $50 per apostille. Do the math on that one!

So, now we need to celebrate. Phase 1 is complete. (If you say that with a deep voice, it sounds like Spock telling William Shatner the plan to destroy the Klingons was successful or something.) I'll wait until Kristi sends our mini to Russia before I tackle the documents needed for the main dossier. That gives me a few days to sit back, sip some tea, reach for the phone book and get National Home Health Care's number on speed dial. I think I may be needing a standing order of oxygen tanks at my door.