So Close, But So Far Away

I scanned all of our documents the other day. I was waiting for our documents from our local agency, as I had not received them yet. Bryan had been urging me to send the documents to our international agency as is, but I am a bit anal about paperwork and making sure it is 100% complete. Yesterday, Bryan called our local agency to find out what the problem was - our local social worker stated that she had been in contact with the international agency about the paperwork and that she was just ensuring that everything was exactly as they wanted it. She stated that we would have it all on Monday. That being said, Bryan immediately called me and told me to send in all of our scanned documents.

I first tried sending all the documents in a scanned powerpoint presentation. The file was too big to be received by the agency. I then broke the documents into two presentations - sent it - both files were too big. I finally sent the files as an attachment. I could only send 11-12 attachments on each email - So, the agency received all of our scanned documents (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4). Yes - there really were that many documents!!!!! AND, this does not include the multiple papers that the local agency has been sending. I sent this all to the international agency. They are reviewing every piece of paper. They must ensure that it has proper signatures, proper notarization, proper dates, proper wording, etc. They will ensure that there is no possible problem with any of the paperwork. If there is one mistake, one strikethrough, or even one word out of place - then we will need to redo that particular form. Our international counselor told me that in almost all cases, there are a few forms that must be redone and that I should not be upset if we have to redo a few.

I am hoping to hear from them by Monday - maybe we will be one of the lucky couples that does not have to redo any of it (This would be the part where I would say that the POWER OF PRAYER would really help). Once we get the ok from the agency, we will set up a time to have the documents apostilled - courier them to the translator - and then off they will go to Russia. We should receive a referral very quickly (once they get the translated paperwork). They only have to give us 10 days notice for travel, so we may be in Russia as early as May. WOW!

Bryan and I keep looking at each other and saying (in awe and quiet amazement), "Wow, It's really going to happen". We are dumbstruck!!! Please pray for us. I can 't seem to concentrate on anything else, and now is the time that I really need to concentrate at school!

By the way, thanks for all the blog responses. And YES, we did win the softball game the other night (but I realized that 20 years off from a sport makes one really pitiful - and every muscle in my body aches!!!!!).