Productive Morning - Paperwork

Joe and I rarely have time away from work to take care of things... let alone on the same day. So I knew we had to try to get this birth certificate issue resolved this week. After going through several more rounds with the vital records people and having the lawyer give some advice (the one who provided us with the kit), we decided to head downtown so we could work it face-to-face. I was "pretty sure" I had the right certified copy of what they needed (thank goodness for my usually-useless-tendency to over-plan, as I had ordered an extra certified copy from the court and they needed to keep it.)

So after my 8am dentist appointment and Joe returning from dropping Samuel off at school, we set out for the other side of town, ready to battle this out. When we got to the very-government-looking building, we headed up to the 2nd floor, to suite 225 to see Tony, the "filiation specialist." When we asked to see him, we had to wait a bit and honestly, I was feeling a bit nervous, not knowing if we had what we needed (our assumption with this adoption process is always that we will have to re-do something or other!) However, when we came to the counter, he greeted us with a handshake, "Happy New Year" and a smile (we weren't expecting this.) I showed him the paperwork and handed him the incorrect birth certificate... he looked at them and said: "give me one moment and I will bring out a corrected version."

And that was that! We were expecting to have to argue our case a bit more and did not expect we would get a new certificate issued on the spot! Time well spent... do I dare say that we now have a final US birth certificate?!

Joe and I then went across the street to the mall, stopped at Starbucks and watched a bit of ice skating practice (picture.) And then we headed straight for the Social Security office and applied for a SSN card for Samuel, which I am happy to report should arrive in about 2 weeks! All of this was done before 10am - and we are now feeling so much better than yesterday!