I would apologize for not updating in the last week since it feels like so much has been going on, but it's mostly been me freaking out so I don't think you'll mind too much. ;-)
Anyways, now I have finally figured out what is going on and what I need to do. Yay!! We have re-ordered most of our documents in duplicate. (Luckily, this time we don't need the triplicate!) My mom is awesome and is getting our court documents (marriage license & birth certificates) for us and getting them certified and all that too! We also have several close friends and family who are helping us out with new letters of recommendation and a guardianship statement. Basically, our friends and family rock!! :-) This side of the pond, we are still waiting on our medical exam complete with tons of new blood work, but that's on Thursday morning, so we should get it by next week. We will then just be waiting on D's 2 documents he needs to get from work. Sadly, those could take long enough to hold us up but I am hoping the people who are kind enough to do those for us are having slow days and don't mind getting those to us by next week. Once we get those, the real "fun" begins!!
We get to take all of our "German originating" documents to a local Notar (notary). They will notarize all of the original documents for us as well as provide us with notarized copies of our passports and our 2011 tax returns (which we just got last week! That's another blessing, but that's another story...) In the US, notaries are easy enough to get at most banks/credit unions and are virtually (if not entirely) free. Here, not so much. Notaries are actually pretty elite. There are only so many of them registered and there's a cap, so finding one isn't terribly easy. They are also expensive. We're going to be paying 13 Euros PER DOCUMENT! We need 18 documents total! And, as if that weren't bad enough, after they are notarized we have to get them certified by the "district court". I am only guessing on who this is. The Notar will tell us, so I'm not terribly worried about being vague on this detail. But, if it's who I think it is, then we're looking at another 13 Euros per document! But, that just isn't quite enough pain yet. Then, we have to send them off to the Federal Office of Administration to be Authenticated by Germany. The fee? 15 Euros per document!! And, because that doesn't cause me to hyperventilate enough just thinking about it, we have to take these notarized, certified, and German authenticated documents to the Crescent Moon embassy in Frankfurt to have then Authenticated once more! The cost? Another 15 Euros per document! Oh, they are bleeding us dry!!! Over 1,000 Euros just to get our documents authenticated! Yikes!!! In America, this entire procedure would be 1 step less AND cost practically nothing!! I knew we would be paying more to have things done while we live overseas, but I expected the cost to come from shipping and online ordering fees and things like that, certainly not from such a crazy complicated process! And this doesn't even include the last 2 weeks that I spent frantically scouring the internet and calling several Crescent Moon embassies (who, btw, don't answer their phones when they are supposed to and who are lucky to speak English) before I finally called the German Federal Office of Administration in Köln and got in touch with someone who explained everything very clearly. It was the most stressful part of the process so far! German bureaucracy is a nightmare in itself, but adding Crescent Moon's craziness in there was just too much for me! BUT, at least now we know what we need to do! That's the great news!!
As for my I-800A, I still haven't heard anything else. I have convinced myself that if I don't get a pink slip (the dreaded "Request for Evidence" that can cause everything to come to a screeching halt) in the mail tomorrow, I can breathe a little bit easier. Why tomorrow, I'm not really sure. It just popped into my head and when I do the math, it makes sense there too, so I'm going with it. ;-) My placing agency told me that I should call and speak with the agent handling our case and ask how long they think it will be before we get our acceptance letter so we can know when we need to have our documents ready by, but I haven't gotten the guts to do that yet. I mean, this person has the power to approve or deny us and I don't want to say something stupid that will make them turn us down. Maybe if I don't get that pink slip in the mail tomorrow, I will be brave enough to call. We'll see. :-)
Things are going. Not as quickly as I would like, but they are still moving at a good speed - at God's speed - and I am good with that! I will continue to keep you posted.
-V
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