letting go of things beyond my control

When we arrived at the Secretary of State's office yesterday, I pulled out our documents one by one from our adoption agency, checking off my list to make sure everything we needed was being authenticated. I had kept everything together inside a huge envelope to make sure I wouldn't loose anything. I freaked out when I discovered that we were missing three kinds of documents to authenticate from our adoption agency. We went ahead and authenticated everything we had for them to do. The staff was so nice to me and reassured that it would be fine. I should just FedEx/UPS them back to them, including a prepaid mailer, and they would authenticate them same day, so I'd have them back in 1-2 days. I even showed the staff a photo of Hannah and retold the story about Hannah exclaiming "I want to do the gold stickers!!!!" The staffer thought that was so funny that she slipped me a gold seal to give to Hannah. So sweet! She showed me several photos and Christmas cards that international adoptive families send to the Secretary of State's office, and she said that authenticating our documents was one of their favorite things to do, because they felt a part of bringing families together. I got all choked up, and decided that would be sending a Christmas card to the Indiana Secretary of State's office this year.

I had forgotten that our state doesn't charge for authentications. I was remembering how much a friend in Nevada had paid for hers... in the thousands of dollars perhaps! The staffer told me that our state is the only state that doesn't have a fee for the service. Thank you, Indiana!


Hannah and Grandma with a gold sticker

After leaving the government center I called the adoption agency. No answer. This is not good. IDEA! I know someone who mentioned that they had their private cell phone number! Phoned a friend, got the hook up for the cell number, called agency rep, and agency took care of overnighting the missing documents to us. Kevin FedExed them today to the Secretary of State's office, and we should have them back on Tuesday to overnight to TECO, arriving in Chicago on Wednesday. I was a little frustrated by this delay and hate the idea of lil' dude waiting on us, but over all I'm feeling good about letting go of things beyond my control. I can only do so much. Most of this adoption process is out of my hands, and all I can do is wait. And pray. And eat chocolate. And go power walk three miles on the treadmill to work off remaining frustrations.