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On Wednesday my Ontario Agency emailed to let me know that my documents were on their way to Honduras after visiting the Honduran Consulate and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  The documents should arrive by Friday.  Then they go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tegucigalpa before being submitted to the Judge. 

It has been six weeks since my file was presented to the court.  I should have been half way through by now but with this request for updated documents I just don't know where I stand.  People are always asking me when I am going back.  I give the same answer each time..... I have no idea.

One more piece done

I got a surprize email today from my BC Agency.  They recieved my Letter of No Objection (LONO) from the BC Ministry of Children and Family Development.  I wasn't expecting this until the end of August.  In fact, I was going to call my agency to see what else had to be done to get the LONO.  I did some of the steps: new police check, new prior contact check and filled out a form detailing any changes to my homestudy.  I guess that was all I needed to do. 

The LONO letter is required as part of the immigration process.  It lets immigration agents know that the Ministry has reviewed my homestudy and my referral and they have no objections to the match.  The letter was sent to the immigration office in Guatemala.  They already have information on my case from my application for citizenship which I submitted in the Spring.  The next stage will be filling out the second set of forms and submitting them to the immigration office.  I think that is done once the adoption is complete. 

Am I done?

I am hoping that I am done with paperwork for a while.  I seem to have spent a lot of time, energy and money over the last three weeks trying to get all these documents completed and sent off.  Of course, it has been made worse by the mistake my agency made with the documents for Honduras.  The mistake they made was over the notarization.  Usually, they do all of the notarizing but due to a postal strike and a lapsed licence, they couldn't do it.  So that is why the papers were sent back to me.  I recieved them on Monday and after phoning most of the notaries in town, I got an appointment.  However, they didn't know what they were supposed to do.  They kept saying that it was not possible to notarize an original.  Of course it was now 4:00 BC time and 7:00 Ontario time so I couldn't call to get clarification on what I needed.  I made another appointment for the next afternoon. 

I was in meetings Tuesday morning and had my head totally immersed in discussion about work items which was a relief after spending Monday night researching notarization and finding out that there is a different notary system between here and Ontario although I am not sure how this affected me.  Of course I also emailed my agency Monday night but there was still no answer by noon Tuesday.  I emailed again and finally at 1:00 they contacted me and said that the problem was solved, please send the papers back.  By 4:00, I was back at the courier office.  The papers arrived there today. 

Between all this I have been scanning documents to my BC Agency.  They need copies of everything that I send to the Ontario agency.  Actually, I am supposed to send it to them first and they send it to TDH.  However, since things happened so quickly and documents were needed in a rush, I just sent them straight to Ontario.  I have one of those printers that scans one page at a time, which means it takes a long time to do many pages of acceptance letters, medicals, reference letters.  Half way through I actually wondered if it would be smart to by one of those giant printer/scanner/stapling/multitasking units like we have at work.  It would have made things much easier!
Wednesday night I continued with paperwork this time filling out passport forms for my daughter.  Her passport expires in December and I want to bring her with me to Honduras.  Honduras requires that your passport is valid for six months when you enter so I need to get her a new one.  I am heading to the office in Victoria tomorrow to so we will get the document well ahead of time. 

Then, I decided to do the last thing on my list.  Print off the stage two immigration forms, the forms for Canadian citizenship.  I don't think I need these until I am in Honduras but at least they are ready to go. 

So, I now hope I am done for a few weeks.  There may be a few more bits of paper in the coming weeks but the worst of it should be done...I hope.  The sad thing is that all this focus on paperwork has left me little time to learn more Spanish.  This will now be my priority........behind painting his bedroom....orange of course, his favourite colour.

Back like a boomerang

For the last couple weeks I have been rushing around trying to complete more adoption paperwork.  Some of this is for the BC Agency.  They required a new police report, a new child abuse check and a form outlining changes to my homestudy so that an update can be done.  All of this is required so that my agency can request a Letter of No Objection from our BC Government.  I will then present this letter to our immigration office in Guatemala on the final trip.  All of this was straight forward and expected. 

The two documents requested from the judge in Honduras were not expected and they were required ASAP.  So I put all my energy into running around, begging the doctor's office to squeeze me as I couldn't wait, using holiday time so I could leave work and reach the courier office on time.  I was so releived on Tuesday when I walked out of the courier office knowing that it was done.

On Thursday morning I got an email from my agency saying that they had made an error and they were sending my documents back to me!!  So all my rushing was for nothing.  I won't recieve these documents until Monday or Tuesday and then by the time I rush them to the notary and back to the courier office, it will be Wednesday or Thursday before they arrive at the Honduran Consulate.  One whole week lost. 

When my dossier went on this journey last year through the consulate and the Ministry of FA it took 11 weeks.  My agency insists that it will be shorter this time because of fewer documents and that they are hoping people will rush things along.  Well if this is an example of how things are going to go then it will take at least 11 weeks to get there if not longer. 

I now know that I will not be going back in September.  My paperwork won't arrive until the end of September if eveything goes well.  Then it has to go through the court.  My agency said that the court would be working on the rest of my file so it won't slow things down.  Really?! If the documents don't arrive until the end of September its already taken two weeks longer then it should have been.  And then the new documents have to be looked at.  I think a better estimate is to count the three months for the court process after my documents arrive which would put the court approval date at the end of December.  That will be six months after my first trip.  All of this is just totaly unbelievable.