So, apparently the woman who did our homestudy didn't finalize our homestudy before she went on vacation 3 weeks ago. She said it was done but we never got it. Finally today, she is back and sent my agency and e-mail saying "still waiting for your approval before I finalize the homestudy". Ugh. Our agency sent back a message of "we sent the approval weeks ago, just waiting for your homestudy." Ugh again. Oh well. I suppose the homestudy might be in the mail sometime this week, so I guess I had better get off my butt and make sure my sis-in-law has everything she needs to finish this paperwork off.
Good news, we got all our California Chinese Consulate authentications!
Once we get USCIS approval, we'll get all that notarized and authenticated and we'll be done!
Then we have to track down all the $$ for the final payments. Fun, fun.
Almost there!
By the way, my conclusion about moving to Toronto is about the same as starting the adoption process while living in Doha. We will have to make decisions based on imperfect information. So, at this point, we won't be able to find out everything we need to know to make the right decision. So far, doing it while in Doha has been difficult, but not impossible. We'll move forward and see what happens.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no....
Such is the life of someone who is researching adoption law.
Ok, first let me share the good news. Apparently it only takes 30 days to receive USCIS approval. Yea! We were anticipating 2 months, based on Cydil's blog, but the time period has been cut down. Of course, this assumes we will be approved. No guarantees on that. I haven't heard from my mother in law, so that tells me she has not received our homestudy yet. That's ok.
And, my mom received our paperwork so she can now submit our CA paperwork to the China consulate in Sacramento. That's good news, particularly if our USCIS approval will take less time.
And now, I will begin to vent....
I generally try to stay fairly anonymous on this blog so I don't generally provide exact locations, but in this case I will share with you the city we are considering a move to. Toronto, Canada. Why do I share this delicious piece of personal information? Because, apparently Ontario, Canada (where Toronto is) has possibly the most restrictive adoptive laws in the entire world. It all began when I was skimming a list-serv I am a member of called "adoptionforamericansabroad" on Yahoo Groups. Somebody had made a comment that moving to Ontario required them the "just" change to a Canadian adoption agency. I have since contacted my agency, several social workers in Ontario and an adoption agency in Toronto. All of my first responses seemed to indicate that, yes, if we moved to Toronto we would not be able to continue with our US adoption agency. How could this be possible, I wondered, since we were logged in with China with our first adoption agency? Would we just have to withdraw and start again? Referrals come through the agency, so switching agencies would, I thought, put us back at the end of the line.
But, the good news. Today, within 30 minutes of each other, I received 2 messages. One from the Canadian agency I had contacted. I had responded to his first message emphasizing that we were not planning on becoming Canadian citizens and that Canada was a temporary move (although we could not say whether or not we would be there when the adoption was finalized, maybe, maybe not). The best line in his entire e-mail was "You should have no problem finding a social worker here who can prepare a homestudy to the specifications your US agency requires!" Yippeee! Then, I checked an other e-mail address and I got a message from someone who told me that she was currently in Canada, and currently in the process of an adoption and that Canada had NO INTEREST in her adoption! So, all she needed to do was find a social worker willing to come from the US to do the HS update.
Of course, due to USCIS requirements, we will have to do a homestudy update before 18 months are up. But, if we can just get an update and not have to start again this move will be possible.
Oh yeah, more bad news. Not for us, but for some friends who have finally finalized the adoption of their 10 month old baby girl from Ethiopia. They live in the same country as we do, so she and I have enjoyed swapping adoption stories. We recently had a really nice baby shower for her! They are in the US for a summer vacation and I assume timed to process her citizenship and passport paperwork. They just got notice that their little girl's passport application was rejected! She arrived in the US on a IR-3 visa, which based on all the info my agency gives me, means that she should have received citizenship upon arrival on US SOIL. I'm awaiting an update on this, but apparently US Immigration says that one of the parents must prove 2 year residency in the USA. Of course, they cannot since they have lived here for several years. I have contacted my agency about this because if an IR-3 visa requires 2 year US residency, this could be a huge problem for us as well.
Seems the problem with adoption law around the world is that they are very fluid and subject to interpretation and change. I suppose I should be used to that by now, such is life in the Arab world.
Ok, first let me share the good news. Apparently it only takes 30 days to receive USCIS approval. Yea! We were anticipating 2 months, based on Cydil's blog, but the time period has been cut down. Of course, this assumes we will be approved. No guarantees on that. I haven't heard from my mother in law, so that tells me she has not received our homestudy yet. That's ok.
And, my mom received our paperwork so she can now submit our CA paperwork to the China consulate in Sacramento. That's good news, particularly if our USCIS approval will take less time.
And now, I will begin to vent....
I generally try to stay fairly anonymous on this blog so I don't generally provide exact locations, but in this case I will share with you the city we are considering a move to. Toronto, Canada. Why do I share this delicious piece of personal information? Because, apparently Ontario, Canada (where Toronto is) has possibly the most restrictive adoptive laws in the entire world. It all began when I was skimming a list-serv I am a member of called "adoptionforamericansabroad" on Yahoo Groups. Somebody had made a comment that moving to Ontario required them the "just" change to a Canadian adoption agency. I have since contacted my agency, several social workers in Ontario and an adoption agency in Toronto. All of my first responses seemed to indicate that, yes, if we moved to Toronto we would not be able to continue with our US adoption agency. How could this be possible, I wondered, since we were logged in with China with our first adoption agency? Would we just have to withdraw and start again? Referrals come through the agency, so switching agencies would, I thought, put us back at the end of the line.
But, the good news. Today, within 30 minutes of each other, I received 2 messages. One from the Canadian agency I had contacted. I had responded to his first message emphasizing that we were not planning on becoming Canadian citizens and that Canada was a temporary move (although we could not say whether or not we would be there when the adoption was finalized, maybe, maybe not). The best line in his entire e-mail was "You should have no problem finding a social worker here who can prepare a homestudy to the specifications your US agency requires!" Yippeee! Then, I checked an other e-mail address and I got a message from someone who told me that she was currently in Canada, and currently in the process of an adoption and that Canada had NO INTEREST in her adoption! So, all she needed to do was find a social worker willing to come from the US to do the HS update.
Of course, due to USCIS requirements, we will have to do a homestudy update before 18 months are up. But, if we can just get an update and not have to start again this move will be possible.
Oh yeah, more bad news. Not for us, but for some friends who have finally finalized the adoption of their 10 month old baby girl from Ethiopia. They live in the same country as we do, so she and I have enjoyed swapping adoption stories. We recently had a really nice baby shower for her! They are in the US for a summer vacation and I assume timed to process her citizenship and passport paperwork. They just got notice that their little girl's passport application was rejected! She arrived in the US on a IR-3 visa, which based on all the info my agency gives me, means that she should have received citizenship upon arrival on US SOIL. I'm awaiting an update on this, but apparently US Immigration says that one of the parents must prove 2 year residency in the USA. Of course, they cannot since they have lived here for several years. I have contacted my agency about this because if an IR-3 visa requires 2 year US residency, this could be a huge problem for us as well.
Seems the problem with adoption law around the world is that they are very fluid and subject to interpretation and change. I suppose I should be used to that by now, such is life in the Arab world.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Moving forward...
In an amazingly short 2 weeks, the NY China consulate authenticated my husband's birth certificate. They threatened one month, so, yea! One batch done! 2 more to go.
Looks like our CA documents are still in the mail to my mom. So, once she gets those she'll submit to the Northern California China Consulate. This is silly. Apparently the Southern California Secretary of State office does not do mail requests, so if you send in for authentications via mail (we had to mail our stuff somewhere, so why not straight there rather than to my mom who would then have to walk it in), you have to send them to Sacramento. BUT, then if you want to take them to the Chinese Consulate that is not far away in Los Angeles, no luck. You have to send them to the consulate in the area they were authenticated. Ugh.
Our homestudy appears to be completed so now our agency and our homestudy provider have to somehow work out the details of the agency writing a letter to go with the HS. Not sure how it works exactly. To be honest, I don't care as long as they do it and it's what is required. Once that's done we can finally submit our I800A form. It's ready and waiting at my in-laws' house.
Ok, new glitch. We've taken the past year to get our paperwork completed. That is not counting the almost-year prior that we looked into this and figured out how to do it while living overseas. Our paperwork started arriving back in January, so that's the month when our suff starts to expire (all paperwork must be less than 1 year old upon submission to China). At this point, we're expecting to be 100% done in about 2 months. I keep re-reading Cydil's blog that says she got her USCIS approval in less than 2 months and I'm encouraged. So, as soon as we get USCIS approval, we'll be ready about 2 weeks after that. So, here's the glitch. We're thinking about moving. If we move, we possibly have to then conform to the laws of the place we move to. (thank you Hague treaty, it was hard enough doing this while living in a non-Hague country). We might have to start all over. The thought of this makes me ill.
So, here's the moral dilemna of it all. Whenever you move you have to submit a homestudy update. Fair enough. They want to make sure that you haven't moved from a place suitable for children to a rat-infested studio apartment. But, when we do a homestudy update, we will have to find someone who is approved to do one in that particular area. Although a homestudy update should be merely a formality, if we move to a place that has higher standards than we have completed, we will first need to reach those standards. Some places, in fact, are extremely picky about your agency. And although we have already paid our agency for the adoption, we might be required to find a new agency. Ouch! And here comes the moral dilemma. What are the chances we will be living in this new location by the time the adoption is complete? Hard to say at this point. But, what if we move and redo everything and then move to an other place where we have to redo it back to the original? We're talking thousands and thousands of dollars here not to mention all the stress and aggravation of needing to redo everything. So, would it terrible if we "ignored" our move until we knew whether or not we would be there when the adoption was complete? There is no guarantee how long the waiting period will take. Hey, our girls could be in Jr. High before they have a new little sister. Ok, I exaggerate, but really, some people (random blogs, I need to stay off these kind of things) are even estimating the wait time as long as 7 years! Seriously, this is China. Although the process if perdictable, the time period is not. There are so many factors involved. When we started this process we were told that when we moved "all we would need to do was find a qualified homestudy providor to do a homestudy update". Easy, easy. Hey, we found someone to come to the middle east, didn't we? Finding one in a western country shouldn't be hard at all! Wrong.
It never occured to me that adoption laws would be a factor in deciding whether or not to take a job offer. Ok, technically the job offer has not arrived so it's technically not an issue yet. But it could be soon.
Looks like our CA documents are still in the mail to my mom. So, once she gets those she'll submit to the Northern California China Consulate. This is silly. Apparently the Southern California Secretary of State office does not do mail requests, so if you send in for authentications via mail (we had to mail our stuff somewhere, so why not straight there rather than to my mom who would then have to walk it in), you have to send them to Sacramento. BUT, then if you want to take them to the Chinese Consulate that is not far away in Los Angeles, no luck. You have to send them to the consulate in the area they were authenticated. Ugh.
Our homestudy appears to be completed so now our agency and our homestudy provider have to somehow work out the details of the agency writing a letter to go with the HS. Not sure how it works exactly. To be honest, I don't care as long as they do it and it's what is required. Once that's done we can finally submit our I800A form. It's ready and waiting at my in-laws' house.
Ok, new glitch. We've taken the past year to get our paperwork completed. That is not counting the almost-year prior that we looked into this and figured out how to do it while living overseas. Our paperwork started arriving back in January, so that's the month when our suff starts to expire (all paperwork must be less than 1 year old upon submission to China). At this point, we're expecting to be 100% done in about 2 months. I keep re-reading Cydil's blog that says she got her USCIS approval in less than 2 months and I'm encouraged. So, as soon as we get USCIS approval, we'll be ready about 2 weeks after that. So, here's the glitch. We're thinking about moving. If we move, we possibly have to then conform to the laws of the place we move to. (thank you Hague treaty, it was hard enough doing this while living in a non-Hague country). We might have to start all over. The thought of this makes me ill.
So, here's the moral dilemna of it all. Whenever you move you have to submit a homestudy update. Fair enough. They want to make sure that you haven't moved from a place suitable for children to a rat-infested studio apartment. But, when we do a homestudy update, we will have to find someone who is approved to do one in that particular area. Although a homestudy update should be merely a formality, if we move to a place that has higher standards than we have completed, we will first need to reach those standards. Some places, in fact, are extremely picky about your agency. And although we have already paid our agency for the adoption, we might be required to find a new agency. Ouch! And here comes the moral dilemma. What are the chances we will be living in this new location by the time the adoption is complete? Hard to say at this point. But, what if we move and redo everything and then move to an other place where we have to redo it back to the original? We're talking thousands and thousands of dollars here not to mention all the stress and aggravation of needing to redo everything. So, would it terrible if we "ignored" our move until we knew whether or not we would be there when the adoption was complete? There is no guarantee how long the waiting period will take. Hey, our girls could be in Jr. High before they have a new little sister. Ok, I exaggerate, but really, some people (random blogs, I need to stay off these kind of things) are even estimating the wait time as long as 7 years! Seriously, this is China. Although the process if perdictable, the time period is not. There are so many factors involved. When we started this process we were told that when we moved "all we would need to do was find a qualified homestudy providor to do a homestudy update". Easy, easy. Hey, we found someone to come to the middle east, didn't we? Finding one in a western country shouldn't be hard at all! Wrong.
It never occured to me that adoption laws would be a factor in deciding whether or not to take a job offer. Ok, technically the job offer has not arrived so it's technically not an issue yet. But it could be soon.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Authentications...
A few more steps done!
My husband's birth certificate has been authenticated by the State of Maine, and many more of our documents have been authenticated by the State of California. We were almost ready to go for our Washington DC authentications until we realized that our USCIS approval ALSO needed to be authenticated. So, why do it twice? So we'll wait on those documents to be authenticated until then.
The Maine birth certificate is in the mail to the New York China Embassy. It should take a month to get that authenticated there, so the website says. In the next few days, I'll get the application mailed out to CA so my mom can send the CA authenticated documents to the CA China Consulate.
My husband's birth certificate has been authenticated by the State of Maine, and many more of our documents have been authenticated by the State of California. We were almost ready to go for our Washington DC authentications until we realized that our USCIS approval ALSO needed to be authenticated. So, why do it twice? So we'll wait on those documents to be authenticated until then.
The Maine birth certificate is in the mail to the New York China Embassy. It should take a month to get that authenticated there, so the website says. In the next few days, I'll get the application mailed out to CA so my mom can send the CA authenticated documents to the CA China Consulate.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
One major step: DONE!
We have officially received all of our required paperwork for our homestudy and dossier. I had no idea it would take this long but finally, the day arrived. We visited California last month, and that made it much easier. My husband's CA police clearance apparently was lost in the mail, so while we were there we went to a fingerprinting place and they fingerprinted him and electronically submitted his police clearance request. How easy! So much easier and cheaper than the ordeal we had to go through here. We also mailed our CA child abuse clearances while we were there (supposedly they were submitted twice by our former HS guy, I don't believe he submitted it the first time, and the second he didn't bother to check to see that a check was required.) So, all in all we have acquired:
For me:
* birth certificate from CA
* police clearance from CA, DC, VA and Qatar
* child abuse clearance from CA, DC and VA
* FBI clearance
For my husband:
* birth certificate from ME
* police clearance from CA, DC, FL and Qatar
* child abuse clearance from CA, DC and FL
* FBI Clearance
For us:
* 3 recommendation letters
* marriage certificate
And, we have completed AND notarized the following forms:
* medical clearances
* financial statement
* employment letters (for both of us, from my husbands company and one I wrote saying "I choose to stay home and raise my children")
* personal statement to China
Whew! Now all (sarcasm here) we have to do is get all our dossier documents authenticated at the Secretary of State (for us, one packet to Maine, one packet to CA and one packet to DC) THEN get those authenticated documents sent to the Chinese Consulates in NY, CA or DC (depending on their authentication location). Whew! We left NH last weekend and here's how that is going to happen:
* the ME packet is being mailed by my inlaws in NH to ME Sec of State. Then when they receive the results, they will forward the second packet to the NY Chinese Consulate.
* The CA packet is being mailed by my inlaws in NH to the CA Sec of State. The results of that will go to my parents in CA. From there, they will send the results to the Chinese Consulate in CA. Slight problem. All the documents are from Southern California, but the Sec. of State is in Northern California. There are 2 Chinese Consulates, one in So Cal one in No Cal. We have to use the "correct" one. Not sure which one to use since the docs are from So Cal but the authentications are from No Cal.
* The DC packet is going to be hand carried by my sis in law to the State Department in DC (she works near it). First, though she must wait for us to receive in the mail my husband's CA police clearance that we will get notarized here overseas. She will then wait for the results and, if we are lucky, will hand carry it to the Chinese Embassy in DC and wait for those results.
* Oh, then there's the I800A form. That's still in NH awaiting a copy of our homestudy to be attached to that. BUT, one piece of good news is that we had extra fingerprint forms done here and since we couldn't understand the directions on the form for overseas fingerprinting (there are no biometrics fingerprinting places here) I just left them with the form. I just contacted NBC Hague about what to do and they said to just include our fingerprint cards with the form. Yea! For once something worked easier and cheaper than if we were in the US. So once our HS woman releases our HS we're ready to submit this form!
Still about a million steps to go, but since our paperwork starts expiring in January, we need to get our dossier submitted to China no later than December. Actually, now we might move, so we really need to get it in before we go. Can't move in the middle of this process, that would be a disaster. We can move before we get our little girl though, believe me, we have looked into that.
For me:
* birth certificate from CA
* police clearance from CA, DC, VA and Qatar
* child abuse clearance from CA, DC and VA
* FBI clearance
For my husband:
* birth certificate from ME
* police clearance from CA, DC, FL and Qatar
* child abuse clearance from CA, DC and FL
* FBI Clearance
For us:
* 3 recommendation letters
* marriage certificate
And, we have completed AND notarized the following forms:
* medical clearances
* financial statement
* employment letters (for both of us, from my husbands company and one I wrote saying "I choose to stay home and raise my children")
* personal statement to China
Whew! Now all (sarcasm here) we have to do is get all our dossier documents authenticated at the Secretary of State (for us, one packet to Maine, one packet to CA and one packet to DC) THEN get those authenticated documents sent to the Chinese Consulates in NY, CA or DC (depending on their authentication location). Whew! We left NH last weekend and here's how that is going to happen:
* the ME packet is being mailed by my inlaws in NH to ME Sec of State. Then when they receive the results, they will forward the second packet to the NY Chinese Consulate.
* The CA packet is being mailed by my inlaws in NH to the CA Sec of State. The results of that will go to my parents in CA. From there, they will send the results to the Chinese Consulate in CA. Slight problem. All the documents are from Southern California, but the Sec. of State is in Northern California. There are 2 Chinese Consulates, one in So Cal one in No Cal. We have to use the "correct" one. Not sure which one to use since the docs are from So Cal but the authentications are from No Cal.
* The DC packet is going to be hand carried by my sis in law to the State Department in DC (she works near it). First, though she must wait for us to receive in the mail my husband's CA police clearance that we will get notarized here overseas. She will then wait for the results and, if we are lucky, will hand carry it to the Chinese Embassy in DC and wait for those results.
* Oh, then there's the I800A form. That's still in NH awaiting a copy of our homestudy to be attached to that. BUT, one piece of good news is that we had extra fingerprint forms done here and since we couldn't understand the directions on the form for overseas fingerprinting (there are no biometrics fingerprinting places here) I just left them with the form. I just contacted NBC Hague about what to do and they said to just include our fingerprint cards with the form. Yea! For once something worked easier and cheaper than if we were in the US. So once our HS woman releases our HS we're ready to submit this form!
Still about a million steps to go, but since our paperwork starts expiring in January, we need to get our dossier submitted to China no later than December. Actually, now we might move, so we really need to get it in before we go. Can't move in the middle of this process, that would be a disaster. We can move before we get our little girl though, believe me, we have looked into that.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Finally, interesting paperwork...
Today my project for the day was to get a statement from my vet that my cat is well, vaccinated and well taken care of. Bizarre, but whatever. I just got an e-mail saying we had to do this. So, I typed up a letter "from" the vet to our HS agent giving all the dates of our cat's vaccinations and the date and results of our most recent visit (April, I figure that's close enough that I don't need a new exam for him. Our medical tests were before that!).
We stopped by the vet and asked if they would be willing to sign this letter. We sat down to wait as they pulled our file, talked to the vet and waited for them to do whatever they needed to do. The receptionist offered to let my 3 year old hold a kitten that was in a cage in the lobby. She thought that sounded pretty good, so although I think we waited quite a while we were all fairly entertained by the adorable yellow kitten she had in her lap. My 18 month old enjoyed throwing the dog toy balls all over the floor. She found one she particularly liked and showed it to me and talked about almost the entire time (as much at 18mo olds talk).
Finally, the vet was ready to talk to me and I explained what we were doing and why we needed the letter. He commented that this seemed almost like a court document for a court case. I commented that I thought it was amusing that I was adopting and they required evidence that I cared for and vaccinated my CAT but nothing requires me to prove that I care for and vaccinate my KIDS! He made some comment about no one adopting my kids... After I got home I ran through the conversations in my head and I now think that the vet office thought I was getting this form signed so someone would adopt my CAT! I guess I had kind of forgotten that in the animal world, adoption means placing a dog or cat into a home. How funny, anyway, I have the letter and my cat although over 20lbs, is in good health and vaccinated.
We actually enjoyed getting this paperwork done. Can't go wrong with petting kittens and dogs while you wait! Should I admit I took the kids to get Krispy Kreme when we finished? Nah.
We're almost done. Looks like my husband's police clearance from CA was lost in the mail. Mine was received 2 months ago, and our checks were cashed on the same day. We'll be in CA next week, so I guess a visit to the police station for fingerprinting (and submitting this paperwork for the 3RD! time). Other than that, we are still waiting for our child abuse clearances that our first HS guy supposedly submitted in December. Then, supposedly he resubmitted them in April. He got CA rejected because he didn't bother to send the required checks (or ask us for them) and we are waiting to hear back if he got anything from DC or FL. Hopefully, that would make life easier.
We expected to be done by now, so we have been notarizing our documents as we go. Now, at $50 a page, that's not cheap. But when there is one notary in town, he can charge whatever he wants. Well, we'll be in CA next week and I hear it's only about $10 a page. If we'd known it would all take this long, we would have just notarized everything there. Oh well.
I wonder what it takes to be a notary and if I can be one overseas. Not a bad side job if you are the only one in town.
We stopped by the vet and asked if they would be willing to sign this letter. We sat down to wait as they pulled our file, talked to the vet and waited for them to do whatever they needed to do. The receptionist offered to let my 3 year old hold a kitten that was in a cage in the lobby. She thought that sounded pretty good, so although I think we waited quite a while we were all fairly entertained by the adorable yellow kitten she had in her lap. My 18 month old enjoyed throwing the dog toy balls all over the floor. She found one she particularly liked and showed it to me and talked about almost the entire time (as much at 18mo olds talk).
Finally, the vet was ready to talk to me and I explained what we were doing and why we needed the letter. He commented that this seemed almost like a court document for a court case. I commented that I thought it was amusing that I was adopting and they required evidence that I cared for and vaccinated my CAT but nothing requires me to prove that I care for and vaccinate my KIDS! He made some comment about no one adopting my kids... After I got home I ran through the conversations in my head and I now think that the vet office thought I was getting this form signed so someone would adopt my CAT! I guess I had kind of forgotten that in the animal world, adoption means placing a dog or cat into a home. How funny, anyway, I have the letter and my cat although over 20lbs, is in good health and vaccinated.
We actually enjoyed getting this paperwork done. Can't go wrong with petting kittens and dogs while you wait! Should I admit I took the kids to get Krispy Kreme when we finished? Nah.
We're almost done. Looks like my husband's police clearance from CA was lost in the mail. Mine was received 2 months ago, and our checks were cashed on the same day. We'll be in CA next week, so I guess a visit to the police station for fingerprinting (and submitting this paperwork for the 3RD! time). Other than that, we are still waiting for our child abuse clearances that our first HS guy supposedly submitted in December. Then, supposedly he resubmitted them in April. He got CA rejected because he didn't bother to send the required checks (or ask us for them) and we are waiting to hear back if he got anything from DC or FL. Hopefully, that would make life easier.
We expected to be done by now, so we have been notarizing our documents as we go. Now, at $50 a page, that's not cheap. But when there is one notary in town, he can charge whatever he wants. Well, we'll be in CA next week and I hear it's only about $10 a page. If we'd known it would all take this long, we would have just notarized everything there. Oh well.
I wonder what it takes to be a notary and if I can be one overseas. Not a bad side job if you are the only one in town.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Homestudy... almost there.
We've decided once and for all to dump our flaky HS guy. We found 2 more people through the sympathy of our adoption agency who helped us. I have no idea how I never came across at least one of them originally. I was under the impression that I had a choice of 2-- and one won't do Hague countries for the time being. As for our new people, one is in a nearby country, but her fees are so high that it is almost cheaper to fly someone from Europe. Actually, that's what we are going to do. We went with the one in Europe. Of course, she flies out of a tiny airport and doesn't want to stay over a Saturday night but that's the way it goes. She seems to have her act together and her reference gave her a stellar recommendation. I get the impression that she knows her stuff and if the information is available, she will know it. That's all we can ask.
I'll be honest, we almost threw in the towel on this whole thing. I still wonder sometimes, what in the world are we doing?
I'll be honest, we almost threw in the towel on this whole thing. I still wonder sometimes, what in the world are we doing?
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