Friday, November 9, 2007

One Step Forward, One Step Back

Wouldn't you think that doing a dossier for the fourth time would be a piece of cake? I really didn't think it would take any time to update all of our documents, considering most of them were already on our computer. And after a little nagging at Stu to get our financial documents together, we had our part finished pretty quickly. What I didn't count on was our homestudy agency's (different agency than our placing agency) ability to screw up anything that I ask them to do. I'm not sure why their continual incompetence continues to surprise me, but it does. Our social worker (whom I love!) came to our house to do the homestudy update. After that, I contacted the agency and told them the list of documents I needed and how many copies of each I needed. Easy enough, right?!? Well, they couldn't find our old documents (probably in one of our closed files from the boys' adoptions which they continue to lose our new documents in) so I offered to send them templates of the documents. All they would have to do is fill in their information. A week later we received an email asking if we needed them to do those documents. Um, yeah. That's why I sent you the template. So another week later I received the documents in the mail. Unfortunately, they only sent one copy of each when I asked for, and needed, two of each. So another week later and they send the extra copies. Later that night, as I was gathering all of our documents to get certified and apostilled I noticed that on EVERY SINGLE ONE of the documents from our homestudy agency, they had used the wrong passport number for Stu!! Arrghh!!! Even more frustrating is that we paid them to do an addendum to our homestudy this summer because Stu's passport expired and he had been issued a new number. SOmehow this new number never made it into their system. I am still, impatiently, waiting on these updated documents. This level of incompetency just infuriates me. They are a large agency and it's hard for me to believe that this type of paperwork should be anything other than routine for them. We've been having these type of problems with them since beginning the Chipmunk's adoption over 4 years ago! We've stayed with them because they do our post-placement reports and we really do like our social worker. But as soon as this adoption is finished, we're changing.
Once we get these new documents in, along with our new state background checks (which listed a wrong birthday for Stu), our new dossier will be finished. Yeah! I'm also very excited about the rumors I'm hearing regarding reaccreditation happening very soon! Should make for a very happy holiday season for many families (including ours, hopefully).
Other than that, not much happening here. We've been the house of sickness recently. Poor Chipmunk ended up having a virus by the end of Halloween night and was so sick for a few days. He thinks his belly hurt because of all of the candy he ate and refuses to touch another piece of candy. Of course, I'm not going to try to change his mind on that! And then a few days later, the Monkey ended up with this stomach virus. And the Monkey is very much like me in that when he gets sick, he gets very sick for a long time. After a week of high fevers and hundreds of trips to the bathroom each day, I think he is finally on the mend.
Looks like things are looking up around our household.
Now we can look forward to celebrating the Chipmunk's 5th birthday on Sunday!

10 comments:

Becky and Keith said...

What a nightmare! The one silver lining is that you noticed this BEFORE you had everything apostilled... can you imagine how horrible that would have been? YIKES! I am also hearing rumors of accreditation and I am soooooo excited although I've been trying to talk myself back down to reality. You are very right - it will be a wonderful, wonderful holiday season if these rumors come to fruition! I'm so glad the boys are better... there is nothing worse then the tummy bug.

Troy and Rachel said...

Happy Birthday Chipmunk!! Hope everyone is feeling better.

Good grief on the paperwork side of things. I hope you get those soon and we all hear happy news!! May this holiday season be bursting with referrals.

Dede said...

I know the frustration of paperwork and it is even worse when you have rushed to get everything completed on your side and then someone else is holding you up for no good reason. Hang in there!

Christen L said...

Oh geez oh petes!!! At least they caught it!

Happy 5th Bday S! :)

Michael, Carrie, and S said...

I hope your boys are better now! I'm sorry to hear about your paperwork being such a mess! We're redoing our dossier now, and it has been a very difficult process for us too!

I hope the accrediation rumors are true for CHI so your wait will end soon with your referral for your little girl!

Sig said...

Wow, nightmare is right. I had a HORRID paperchase the first time, even left my first HS agency (3 months and $1300 down the drain). Now that I am on the paperchase again I can't believe how much I forgot. ugh.
Hope the rest goes easy for you.

Carey and Norman said...

Sorry to hear about your home study experiences. I can imagine how frustrated and exhausted you must be. How many times should you have to go through this. Aagh.

It is exciting to hear the accreditation rumors. We hope these are true and referrals make wonderful Christmas presents!

Adrienne, Another Ordinary Miracle said...

Oh, Allison, I am so sorry you're having to do your dossier yet another time, and on top of that your home study agency sounds like a pain! Thank goodness for the nice social worker to help you get through it all :)

I really hope the reaccredidation rumors are true for CHI. I know you are so ready to meet your little girl!

I'm so glad to hear the boys are feeling better and hope Chipmunk has a great 5th birthday!

Adrienne

Jane and Jim said...

I'm so sorry you're having to go through all of that.
I'm praying for reaccreditation for all of you!!!
Hang in there, it will happen!

junglemama said...

I've title one of my posts the same (I think) except I wasn't talking about papaerwork, I was talking about children. :)

God Bless.