Day 76 - Another TRYING Day

Day 76 – Tuesday, June 26^th

I woke up today, got ready, got Sofia ready, and off we went. We took a taxi to go pick up Cecilia, and we went to the passport agency to see if we could pick up her passport. Unfortunately, the lady we were supposed to ask for had just left the building. We talked with another lady that said sometimes the passports are ready by 9am and to go downstairs to check. As we went downstairs, another guy that was working there offered to help us to check if Sofia's passport was ready to be picked up. Unfortunately, it wasn't, but he said he could put a rush on it and we could come back after 3:00pm today to pick it up.

So I refilled Sofia’s diaper bag, put Sofia in her carrier, hailed a cab, and went to pick up Cecilia AGAIN, to head to the passport agency again. I was hoping her passport would be ready for us to pick up because we have an appointment with the doctor at 4:30 and we can't go without having her passport first. My thought at this point was that if all goes well today, there's a slight possibility that we will be DONE with the process by tomorrow afternoon. We planned to go directly to the doctor for her check up since he only sees patients in the afternoons.  We got to the passport agency and Cecilia waited in the taxi while I went in to get her passport, I found the guy that we were talking to earlier that told us to come back after 3:00. He brought my receipt in the back and came out a few minutes later empty handed. He said that it was not there yet because the passport printer was broken. What luck I have, huh???? Not one step of this process has gone smoothly. I have run into problems throughout this entire process from the very beginning. I feel like I am being tested to see how much stress I can take. Apparently there's no EASY button here either!  So the guy offered to talk to Cecilia over the phone (she was in the taxi with Sofia) and told her that it will be there tomorrow morning by 8:00am. (I'll believe it when I see it, 'cuz he was also the one that said it would be ready by 3:00 today.) So... Cecilia called the doctor to cancel our appointment for today because he won't see her without having a passport number assigned to her. Cecilia was very helpful today as she pleaded with the doctor to make an exception to see Sofia tomorrow in the morning. Our plan is to go and get her passport (which will be there! - positive thinking), go directly to the doctor for her check up, and then go to the Embassy at 1:30p. If all goes well, we will have everything completed by tomorrow afternoon or Thursday morning. We're cutting it pretty close since I bought the tickets for us to return on Sunday night. We WILL be home by Monday. 

I think everything from here on out will go well. It has to! One can only be tested so much - and this process has proved to be very trying and stressful. But no matter what happens at this point, we already have the decree and Sofia is already ours. Nothing can take her away from us so I continue to focus on that and I am truly thankful for her. She is so sweet and lovable, and continues to woo strangers on a daily basis. (We'll have to keep a close eye on her when she's a teen - if she's as flirty then as she is now... we could be in trouble!)

Anyway... I was super stressed and mad about an hour ago, but writing this blog is somewhat therapeutic. That and my cold can of Coca-Cola are helping me to feel better. The good news is that Cecilia worked it out so we can "possibly" do all 3 things tomorrow. It's guaranteed to be another race of a day. I'm wiped out.