Nieudolny

In Polish, it means inept.  I have a little widget I found to put on this blog that provides me with a daily Polish word to help me learn more of the language.  And although I love it, it seemed almost prophetic since it kinda captured my feelings about the federal government, especially today.   Now, I am a pretty realistic kind of girl- generally patient and able to see the silver linings amongst the clouds.  Today, I was thrilled when good ole Fed Ex delivered all 33 documents we had sent in to the state of SC all apostilled and pretty.  They all had the nice letter, were attached, signed, all except.... the one for the FBI background check.  Hello cloud. 

This would be the same FBI background check we initially did back in the beginning of fall and received in October as "No Records Found".  Now, at the time, I followed the information to a "t" on both the FBI site and through the info the agency provided.  When I sent the request with the fingerprint cards, I actually called the FBI and spoke to a less than pleasant "professional" that told me exactly what they needed to go directly from that office to authentication.  "No, no charge if they go directly from our office", "Yes, this is exactly what you need to put.  Didn't you look at our website?".  Sigh.  So anyway, I sent in our cover letter with the EXACT wording they had provided me- and yes, which was on their website.  Of course, we got the letters back stamped, but not apostilled .  So I called again and got another "happy" official,  and they told me they didn't do that because our state could.  Ok....  So that matched up with the letter and info our agency had sent regarding getting it apostilled through our state so everything was cool right?  Wrong.  Apparently, most states (but the only one that matters for us is SC) will NOT apostille that document even with the notarized letter recommended from our agency.  Ah, learning curve.  I missed you.  lol  I knew things were going too smoothly.  

So today, we called the SC Sec of State to double check and they told us that they had specific instructions from the FBI- you remember them, the ones who told me exactly what to do?- to NOT apostille any form meant for overseas and that it had to go through the US Dept of State and it should be on the request letter and....blah, blah blah blah, BLAH!   Totally frustrating.  I could have obviously sent that form in a WHILE ago, had it apostilled by the US Dept of State, and back already in my hot little hands, but instead we have to send in even MORE money and wait.  Nieudolny.  I almost feel like buying a $79 ticket to DC just to walk-in with the darn thing!  lol 

Ok, so various silver linings-
1)  The lady from the SC Sec. of State was super awesome (I mean, alot of people are nice in the South, but she was fantastic) and told us exactly what needed to be done; 
2)  We are going to call the wonderful lady we worked with before (you might remember the high praise I paid Naomi from an earlier post) and see if she'll expedite/help us out;  
3)  We still have time for all this because we need to get the final 171H and get our home study sent and back from NC;  
4)  And best of all, we did received the lion's share of the dossier today, all sealed and signed and ready to go once the loose ends are tied up.  Oh, and did I mention they turned it around in one day??  Wow, bravo South Carolina!  

So, I'll try to keep looking on the bright side and carry on, even in the midst of "nieudolny".