so close... and yet so far away

I feel like we've been doing quite a lot of ranting here recently and I apologize for that. I would love this blog to have only happy, positive posts, but sometimes this process makes that hard.

In the last few days, here's what we've learned -

My birth certificate is not the right form for the dossier. Kate from KBS says this seems to happen often in NY and suggests that you need to call and speak to a live person to resolve it. I thought this was not a big deal, but try getting a person from the NY State Dept. of Health on the phone.

I need to obtain a separate, notarized letter confirming my health and life insurance coverage for our dossier. We initially needed proof of our insurance for our agency application. I was having trouble getting a notarized letter from my provider, but Ryan's employer was able to confirm his coverage (and the adopted child's eligibility to receive coverage immediately). Gladney was fine with this, and I understood from my discussions with them that his letter would suffice for us both and I didn't need to obtain a separate letter. Kate says I do. My insurance administrator says they would be happy to send me a confirmation of all my coverage on company letterhead, but no way they'll be getting that notarized. Desperate, I went back to my HR Dept. and asked if they could help. (If you've been reading this for a while, you'll know that I had to go through several rounds with my HR Dept. to get my employment verification letter in the right format and I could not imagine having to go back again for another letter). Fortunately, they are a very patient and understanding group and I hope to have another letter from them soon (of course, your guess is as good as mine as to whether the letter will actually state what it needs to!).

Then there's the infamous bank letter. Kate actually said it looked okay (I'm amazed). But... (you knew a "but" was coming) she wanted to know why the bank only stated that we had a checking account. Well, the answer is because we only maintain a joint checking account; our savings accounts are separate and at different banks. And wouldn't you know it, we need to have a bank letter stating that we have a savings account. Kate says we should be okay if just one of us gets this, and Ryan has nominated me. I think he's had enough of banks - or at least bank reps.

We also made a mistake with respect to Ryan's dossier physician's report (as opposed to the agency application physician report), but that one is my fault. There's a quick fix, but it will mean another trip to the doctor for Ryan.

I knew that the paperwork for adoption would be painful and I didn't expect everything to work out perfectly, but it's still frustrating. We might be making a few suggestions to our agency to improve their instructions when we finally get through this all. Don't get me wrong - they have been really great to work with overall, but they received and reviewed some (not all) of our dossier docs as part of the application process and I can't help but wonder why they didn't point out some of the potential issues then. Now it feels like we have wasted a lot of time waiting, when we could have been fixing these mistakes.

Oh... and we're still waiting for our agency's official approval. I really thought we would have it by now, since they've had our homestudy for a week and had indicated that it only takes a few days to review. With everything else that's gone wrong, I am getting worried!

Well, I cannot end this post on such a negative note, so to switch gears, here's another great site for holiday gifts that do good: UNICEF Inspired Gifts

Happy Shopping!