Almost at the next milestone

The past few weeks have been no picnic in our little adoption world!  Our I-800A was approved on March 18 and I had expected to receive the approval in the mail within a few days so I could send it off for certification before our departure for vacation on the 25th.  Well, as often happens in God's timing, I came to terms with the situation on March 24th.  I knew I would just have to take my mind off the paperwork and focus on having a nice trip to NC with the girls.  We enjoyed our vacation and travel, and as expected, the approval letter arrived the afternoon of the 25th after we had left on our trip.

We returned on Saturday, April 2, and I could do nothing over the weekend.  Monday was the day Merrilee started standardized testing required by the state of GA, so I could not get the paperwork notarized until the afternoon.  By God's grace I was able to get the document notarized, certified and FedEx'd to Atlanta that day.  I felt like I finally had the ball rolling as the last piece of paperwork greased its way through the system.  The Secretary of State's office returned it to me late that morning with it's beautiful Great Seal on Wednesday, and I was overjoyed to know the entire dossier was complete! 

I packed the kids up in the car and we left for the FedEx office once again to send the dossier to the courier in Houston.  My hopes were that she could take it to the Chinese Consulate on Friday and the last step would be finished so I could send the dossier to our adoption agency, and from there it would head to China.  Well, what I hoped and what happened were two entirely different things.

The courier called me Thursday night to tell me she had found three big mistakes with our dossier that I did not catch.  The first one was that the director of the homestudy agency signed and dated the homestudy as January 19, 2011, and the notary signed it January 18, 2011.   Since the notary’s signature cannot be dated before the signer’s signature, we had to get that fixed.  The courier suggested I ask for permission for her to change the 19 to an 18 with a pen so the dates would match. 

Secondly, the Secretary of State in Atlanta used a wrong notary’s name on the cover page with the Great Seal on one of the documents.  I had to contact the SOS and ask them to mail the courier a new cover page with a Great Seal to fix the mistake.  

And the third mistake had to do with the date of a notary’s commission that did not match with the certification date on my medical form. Since the medical form was signed in October and the doctor's signature had to be less than 180 days old, I only had a few more days to get the document authenticated.  There was no way to correct this problem in a timely manner, so I had to send a new medical form to the clinic, have a different doctor who has never examined me sign the form and get it notarized, and then take the form through the entire process of certifications again.

As you can imagine, I cried.  And after wiping away my tears, getting sweet cards and hugs from Merrilee, Jacob, and Katie Mei as they saw my distress, and crying again, I went to bed.  I prayed over and over that God would defeat the sense of failure the enemy had placed on me for not checking the documents thoroughly myself, and that He would fix what was broken.  I knew that this trouble was temporary, and that I had to place this burden on shoulders much stronger than my own. The next morning I sent Jay to work with a new medical form.  Then I put on my Big Girl panties and started making phone calls.  Everyone I needed to talk to was exceptionally helpful, and by Friday afternoon I had two of the problems solved.

The medical exam form proved a little more difficult since no one was available to sign it on Friday.  Thankfully, by Tuesday of this week--just two business days later--we had a new signed form.  I immediately took the form to the courthouse and got it certified, and then took it to FedEx to send it to Atlanta.  I put in a separate envelope to have it sent directly to the courier from there.   As of yesterday, Thursday, the form had been certified and was bearing the Great Seal, and today the entire dossier is on its way, or already at, the Chinese Consulate!

I know this is a ridiculously long post and if anyone is still reading it, you are probably one of those people who can sit and read through the book of Numbers without being tempted to skip any pages!  But I just wanted to record all of this so I can remember the huge, HUGE mountains that God moved on our behalf this past week.  Last Thursday I really felt like I was at the end of my rope and wasn't sure I was able to scale the massive wall before me.  But I just kept reminding myself of my new favorite life verse:

"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you."  Isaiah 26:3

This verse has anchored me over and over in the past several months.  God is so good, and by just placing my trust in Him, I have been able to sleep when sleep would normally not be possible.  I have been able to see Merrilee through surgery without fear or anxiety.  I have been able to seek help and find it, where I normally would try to take things into my own hands.  I am so grateful to have God by my side, and know that "I can do all things through Him who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13

"Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!"  Psalm 150:6

Can I hear an Amen?