I should have known it was going to be one of those days when I looked around at my train station to see everyone carrying umbrellas, and me wearing my rain-unfriendly shoes. Today, my goal was to sprint from Union Station to the Secretary of State’s office for their opening at 8 am to get as many documents state certified as possible before heading into work. On the plus side, I was the first person in line at the office and back at my desk by 9:15, so that’s no too shabby.

What I was dreading was going to happen.. happened. As soon as I went to the window at the office this morning, the clerk paged through all the documents and immediately separated out the one I was worried about. “This is a copy. The notary is right, but the document’s a copy. I can’t seal this.”

One of my documents for certification was a medical letter that really looked like it was photocopied to me. And in the world of state certification, no copies are accepted. Although I questioned the letter when I picked it up, I didn’t push too hard to have another one issued– and I should have trusted my gut.  I can’t quite explain my reaction (which wasn’t too bad), but there’s something very visceral as you’re going through getting all these documents processed, sealed, and authenticated. You feel defensive and a little flustered that a child is waiting for a family longer because you or someone on your team can’t get a signature in the right place or the correct box checked. I know this won’t be the  first time I feel this way, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.

Because the guidelines are so restrictive, you immediately feel like a crazy person even making “polite” demands like “Please write out the date.. no, the whole month… no, not that way, spell it out…. wait, you need my full name there. No abbreviations!”  When you have to go back to the same person two or three times for more clarifications or to have the document rewritten, you start to feel like a little insane. For instance, I’m pretty sure our local police chief now knows we’re planning to adopt because he’s had to sign clearance letters for us a grand total of 5 times in the last two weeks. And let’s not even get into the poor lady behind the window who’s been handling our files.

So, where were we? Oh, the rejected letter, yes. So all in all, I was successful in having 7 documents certified today with one that needs to be rewritten and submitted. I called my doctor’s office immediately and they’re now in the works of rewriting the letter– which I’m not to accept until I believe it’s all hand-written. (Hey, if I thought it could be a copy, the pro would surely think so!) The silver lining in all of this is that I need to return to the Secretary of State office anyhow to get our immigration letter certified, so I can have the letter certified along with medical note. Still, there’s something rather frustrating about having something you’ve worked so hard to get “just so” get rejected.

And to think, I haven’t mentioned any of the crazies I ran into while waiting for my seals. For now, I’ll just focus on the positive of being one step closer to meeting our child and trying to keep all these documents out of the impending downpour.