So our adventure began early this morning as Gabe and I headed to work with Matt to get everything for our dossier notarized. Lots to notarize but it went smoothly, Gabe entertained a bit and then we hit the road to Austin.
The drive didn't seem as long as I had anticipated; we listened to books on CD, danced to lots of music and Gabe perfected the art of petting doggy with lefty.
Finding public parking in Austin had become the hardest part of our morning. Even the police officer I stopped to ask where public parking was couldn't help me. Eventually we found parking and walked 2 miles back to the building where the authentication department belongs. Okay, it wasn't exactly 2 miles but it was 100 degrees out so it felt like 2 miles.
The actual authenticating was a breeze. Five minutes and we were done. Easy peasy is what I texted to Matt. It actually seemed too easy. Looking back that should have been my clue that everything was not going to go as planned. Instead I just relished in the fact that something with this adoption went smoothly.
Gabe and I decided to take in a few sites in Austin and were walking through the Capital Visitors Center when my phone rang. And a Portland area code came up. My heart skipped a beat but I wasn't too concerned. I assumed the call was going to be about our extention fee. I was wrong.
Our agency had recieved our addendum to our homestudy on Tuesday. We are so pleased with how quickly and efficiently Methodist Missions Home (MMH) has been and were eager to continue moving forward. However, after reviewing our addendum and realizing something was miscommunicated, we did not need a homestudy addendum but a completely new homestudy.
Frustrated? Yes. Angry? A bit. Disenchanted? Uh-huh.
With this news we will not be mailing in our dossier information tomorrow, we will have to wait until our homestudy is completed by MMH and then reviewed by our agency.
The only blessing in this I can see is that we found MMH. They are quick in their work and extraordinarily understanding of all these issues we keep hitting. MMH will come out Wednesday, July 20 to hopefully complete our homestudy. Leah (social worker for MMH) will have as much of it already typed up as she can and then will finish it quickly. And MMH will only be charging us for an 'update' rather than the full homestudy fee, which rightfully they should be charging us. A bit of the silver lining in the cloud.
Although this isn't a huge setback, not compared with the other things we've been dealt, it's a setback nonetheless. But we'd rather be setback now then recieve a referral, go to court and the Ethiopian court think our dossier is fraudulent. That would really stink!
So, that's where we're at today.
And a few pictures of our first visit to Austin. Very few because it was very hot!
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