Saturday, August 12, 2006

Houston we have a problem: The Sequel

Wow, here we are and it's Saturday, and I am still in Houston. Yes, that's right...Still here. I know I should have been back yesterday to drop off our documents to our SW, and she was to Fed Ex them on Mon to St. Louis. Well in my little world of adoption nothing seems to be easy, or go as planned. So kid's grab your bag of doritos, and a pint of Ben and Jerry's because it going to be a long bumpy ride. I made it to Austin and Houston on Wed, dropped our I-171-H off at the Chinese Consulate, went to my in-laws had a lovely visit with them, and planned to pick up the stack of documents from the consulate first thing Friday morning, and then head for the hills. Well, arrive at the consulate, she slides my BIG stack of docs under the window, and there is a note on top that says they could not authenticate two of the documents because of.... So I can feel my heart start to race, my palms start to get clammy as I investigate why this is happening. The first being "D's" birth certificate-I had ordered it off the internet, and then sent it to the Sec of State myself to be certified back in April, had never really looked at it since-well they were saying it was a color copy-okay-why would I make a color copy of a document I have possession of??????????????? Especially when I know that the adoption police need all original documents. The other issue was, they were saying notary was a copy not the origianl stamp on the I-171-H-it's not, but whatever-that is easily fixed. But the birth certificate is not easily fixed. After talking on the phone to a person at the consulate who could only say "photocopy" I was getting no where and time was of the essence. So jumped into the big rig (gas guzzling SUV) and headed for the Houston Dept of Health and Vital Statistics. Let me just start by saying it was lovely spending an hour and half with Houston's finest citizens. Once I got to the window presented my problem to the very nice man behind the glass window-he took what we now know is a color copy of my D's birth certificate. He talks to a supervisor, and gets everyone behind the window worked into a tizzy that someone has committed FRAUD! So in the mean time I figure out that I am going to have to drive back to Austin(yes, that's right 167 miles there and back) and I need to get there by 4:00/and to the Sec of State by 4:30 before they close for the weekend-and I spend the weekend in Austin by myself-let me just point out that it is 1:20 at this point, and haven't left the city limits of Houston. They become so focused on the fraud that may have taken place, and not the problem at hand-I need my husband's birth certificate and it certified, and I need it NOW!!! So I jump back into the gas guzzler and head for I-10 on a Friday afternoon-which is like a parking lot. I will spare you the part where I was sobbing on the phone like a little girl to "D" who is the middle of a meeting and I am driving 80 mph-saying I am never going to be able to make it-along with some other choice words that I will spare you. If anyone has questioned that there is a God, or divine intervention-never question it again. I am living proof that it exist. I must send out a BIG thank you to Steve Elkins who is the Deputy Registar of the State of Texas-because he did everything in his power to assist me with my catastrophe. I explained the whole story to him, and he said he would do what he could to help, and that he would look into why this happened. Then "D" was mapping my trip so I would know exactly where to go, and how to avoid the most traffic in Austin(as I would be arriving at prime rush hour) then he called the Sec of State's office and convinced a very nice women "Dawn" to stay until 5:00 so that I would for sure make it. Well as I said, it had to be divine intervention, b/c otherwise I would have never made it there. I arrived at the Dept of Health in Austin at 4:05, walked out with the birth certificate at 4:10-TX Dept. Of Health you Rock-I didn't even have to pay-which was good because I didn't have any way to pay them-oops. I then walked into the Sec of State at 4:25 and arrived in Dawn's office to be greeted with "you must be...." I didn't even have to have her stay late. So I have the documents ready to go first thing Mon morning-I will pay the same day fee, and pick them up Mon afternoon, and then start the 5 hour drive back to Dallas. "D' is meeting me at the SW house, and we will hopefully turn over our docs and be done with it all. We are still hopeful that we will be DTC on Friday the 18th. But I guess that remains to be seen. I will not feel relieved until I probably have picked up the docs from the consulate, or maybe after we have dropped them off with the SW, or maybe I will feel better if she will give me the tracking number so I can check to make sure it arrives, or I know, I will feel better once I know the plane carrying our docs have made it across the ocean without crashing our 5 months of work into the bottom of the sea. Shoot, I don't know when I am going to feel better. I hope it is soon. So I will update you when I get back to Dallas, and have recovered from this crazed, obsessed, mad episode.
I have to tell you when I arrived back at my in-laws, by MIL had turned my bed down, had the towels out ready for me to take a shower, and sent me to bed. I'm such a lucky girl:)
P.S. I have pictures to follow this tale-Why?? I don't know, I started to take pictures before I knew what a nightmare it was going to be:(
P.S.S. I forgot to mention that I have spent enough on gas in the last 5 days on this journey that I could have bought a plane ticket, rental car, and probably a nice hotel.
Note to self...need to trade the big rig for a Prius.

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