Apostille

I made the trip into Atlanta again this morning to have our notarized documents apostilled.  If you are unfamiliar with that term, it basically means that they (the Georgia Superior Court Clerks' Cooperative Authority, or GSCCCA) research each notary to ensure that their signature matches what is on file and then they put a fancy seal on it.  Mission accomplished, but not without a bit of drama thrown in.  I gave all 25 documents to the Notary Manager and he told me to come back in about an hour.  When I came back I could tell by the look on his face that something wasn't quite right.  The notary who had signed our medical records had signed them with her First Name, Middle Initial, Last Name.  That is what was on her notary stamp as well.  Unfortunately according to her commission with our county her stamp and signature should have been written First Name, Middle Name, Last Name.  The GSCCCA could not issue an apostille because of that.  The notary manager had called the county clerk to have them contact the notary so that she could "promise" to sign an affidavit changing her notary commission using her middle initial instead of middle name.  Remarkably, the county clerk called the notary manager at the GSCCCA back in less than 45 minutes giving him the go ahead to apostille those last few documents!

Wheh!

The last four months of our lives represented in paper form

So now I need to make some photocopies of all the apostilles and ship them off to the family traveling to Olga's country this weekend.  

I will be calling the USCIS this afternoon to see if our prints have shown up in the system yet.  It's a bit early, but tomorrow is Veteran's Day so their office will be closed.  Here's hoping I get to update my blog twice in one day with good news!

My big "ASK" for right now is prayers that our USCIS prints land on the right persons desk and that they are able to get our I171H approval letter to us in record time!  Our deadline for dossier submission the the SDA in November 30.  And overnighting documents there doesn't actually get them there overnight.  After I get the approval letter I still have to get it notarized and apostilled before it can be sent.  

Thanks to everyone for following along and all of your support.


S~