Haitian Consulate

I just want to say a word about the paperwork...

Quick guide for the dossier process:
all documents notarized, then..
all notarized documents need State Certified by Sec. of State to authenticate the notaries, then..
some docs go to translation for Haiti to be able to read them (they read French), then...
some docs go to Haitian Consulate in Chicago so they can authenticate the State Certifications, then....
All docs (dossier) go to Haiti.


We completed all notarizations on Sat. the 21st for the Dossier. The normal process is to then have all papers State Certified by the Secretary of State, send them to our agency in AZ. They then find a translator, have them translated, the translator sends them back to the agency in AZ. The agency then sends the docs to the Haitian Consulate in Chicago to get authenticated, then they are returned to AZ. The agency then sends this completed Dossier to Haiti.

We get a referral on the 22nd (the next day), with the dossier in our kitchen, not Haiti. The gal who I'm talking with and runs the orphanage but lives in CA, is at the orphanage now visiting and just had a little girl show up needing a family. She has talked her friend, who also runs the orphanage, into "holding" this little girl for us until our Dossier gets there. (She knew we were close to having it complete!)

So, fast forward....cut out all mailings completely. So, that night, the Dossier and homestudy are scanned/emailed to a translator in CA who will then email back the translations by April 1st. The Haitian Consulate in Chicago tells me on my first phone call that it will take a week for my documents to get authenticated. So I figure, 2 days to get there, a week to authenticate and 2 days back to me. We don't have that kind of time!! I call again today and offer to fly over to Chicago, hand deliver...can they get it done any quicker, like in 2 days? Her answer, same day! She even said if I overnighted the documents, they would work on them the same day and send them back overnight to us. That's a 3day turnaround! AND I don't even have to wait on the translations...she said I can email those when I get them. God is Good.

The only wait now, though, is that the Psychologist had to re-do our letter. He had made one letter for both of us, instead of a letter for each of us. He has the letters done, but hasn't contacted me yet as to when I can pick them up. Once I pick them up, I need to run over to the Secretary of State (trip #4), then add that doc. to my other docs to go the Consulate, then overnight them.

Now it's just a matter of how to get this Dossier safely to Haiti.......Anyone going to Haiti? :)

Dossier, Jack, travel

I am sitting here making 7 copies of my newly received, certified birth certificate hoping my ink doesn't run out. One more document I can check off the list! Nathan and I have a psychologist appointment scheduled for next Thursday, so that will be good to get out of the way. I just hope the psychologist can figure out we're okay in just one session :)

Yesterday, while Taylor and I were doing school, Jack wanted to paint, so I gave him some paper and he gathered the paints and brushes. This is what he created and he calls it "The Sun". He put a star in the center because the sun is actually a star. He then changed what he wanted to be when he grows up to an artist and a daddy instead of a nurse and a daddy.

Jack is also into the human body. Bones, organs, everything. He loves reading books on any of that. We were at the book store a few weeks ago and he really wanted this model of the human brain. It comes apart so you can learn the different parts of the brain. It was $20, so I told him I would pay half since it's educational, but he's have to earn money for the rest. He cleaned and cleaned and earned money, but then spent it at Wal-mart on a Star Wars toy, so he started over and finally earned enough to go back to the store. He did, but got the 'body' instead of the 'brain'. He LOVES it. He put it all together today, organs and all. Next he wants the skeleton. Good news for me, I get more cleaning help :)

Last week while talking to Vera (gal associated with our adoption agency who travels to the orphanage frequently) said we could need to travel as soon as August. This was a shock to us and sooner than expected. Of course, that timeline could change at any time, so we'll see. Just to clarify, this is NOT to bring the child home. This is to meet with the child for the first time and meet with Haiti officials for the first time. In doing so, we save time on something else later on (visas?) I've emailed Vera to ask why that's important. We won't have a better timeline until our dossier (Haiti's required paperwork) is turned in. The dossier is what I'm working on now. My goal is to get all of this paperwork done and to the Secretary of State to sign off on it before I leave for Mexico on March 5th, but that may be stretching it. (The Secretary of State signs off that all notaries are real notaries and that they signed everything properly). From the Secretary of State, the paperwork will then be sent to be translated, then it will be sent to the Haiti Consulate in Chicago.

Anyway, I just finished making 21 copies of paperwork and it's "pert near" (as G'pa W. says) midnight, so better head to bed. Nathan has a terrible head/chest cold, so we all better stay rested.

~L