Friday, January 14, 2011

Terrorist and Virginia Criminal

Well, I am thankful we fought the urge to move our medical appointments up before Christmas (those reports are only good for 3 months). We have those appointments today and then we will officially have all of the things that we need to gather for court. Unfortunately there are still a couple of documents that we need to receive from Russia that we are still waiting on. We had hoped to have those by today and then have everything back in Russia by the end of next week. Of course that was wishful thinking. So we do what we expect to do during this process…. wait.

One thing left on our checklist besides the medicals is a sex offender clearance. We decided to get that done yesterday. With Blake we just did a clearance in the state of Illinois and it was no big deal. Well this time around we were given a national database site that we were told to use. I wasn’t too worried about it. You pay some money and you get the results instantly. You need every area to say in red “No Records Found”. So I type in my first and last name, date of birth, and social security number. I pay for the service and hit enter. Instantly the report is back. It has ‘Heather Overstreet – terrorist’ on it!!!! I felt tears come to my eyes. What on earth is this all about? Is it because I have been out of the country a few times? It is because a lot of my online correspondence has the word Russia in it? What is the deal!?!? My heart was racing and of course there is no number to call. I can only submit an email inquiry. So I immediately sent a desperate sounding email out stating that I am in no way a terrorist and that I just HAVE to have a report back that has “No Records Found” in all areas.

I come to my senses – slightly – and try to remain calm. There has to be some way of getting this all straightened out in a timely manner right? So I decided to go ahead and get Justin’s search done. I do the same for him. I enter his first and last name, date of birth, and social security number. I make the payment. The results come back instantly and what do I see? Virginia Criminal!!!! I don’t know that he has ever been to Virginia! My heart is pounding again and this time I can get more information. The record coming back was for a Justin M. Overstreet. My Justin is Justin L. Overstreet. So clearly this whole online search is not working for us. I immediately get another email sent out. It sounded equally desperate as the first one, and this time I noticed we were supposed to allow at least 2 days for a reply. I was pretty sure I was NOT going to be waiting two days at all to get this worked out. At this point I had to deal with some other things and I decided to walk away for a bit and see what Justin thought we should do. Thankfully about an hour and half later I got an email reply that those results were simple name matches and that when you add our date of births and social security numbers we are actually not terrorists or criminals in Virginia. That is good to know!!! They also attached the records that we needed that clearly stated in red “No Records Found”. I am so happy to have that cleared up. A part of me really wonders why this is even necessary. I can’t even count the number of times we have been fingerprinted and cross referenced in both state and federal databases… Whatever!

Also yesterday, Brady, Madison and Blake all three had their dentist appointments for their cleanings (no cavities!!). Before we left we scheduled their next cleaning for 6 months from now. When I was given the date, I asked “Do you have 4 slots at that time?” The receptionist looked at me a little funny and said that she thought she did. So I went ahead and scheduled the Little Guy’s first dentist appointment!!! Who knows – we may need one sooner than that or we may have to cancel it, but it still felt good to do!

So basically to wrap things up we are waiting on some important papers to get to us from Russia so that we can submit our papers to a judge to review. Slowly, steadily, surely…..

9 comments:

Sabrina and Giorgio said...

Wow, Heather. What is up with all these snafu's lately with paperwork? I haven't been told about any sex offender clearances for Vladivostok. I didn't do one. Do you know if ths is a new requirement I should check with my agency on?

Gloria said...

Glad you got that straightened out! Not that I thought you wouldn't. I would have freaked out as well.

sonflowerjax said...

Wow! So happy that you got the reply e-maail so quickly, sheesh! Praying for a quick paperwork turnaround for you! :)

cheryl said...

glad to know my niece is not a terrorist or married to a criminal. lol. hopefully the little guy will be for the next dentist trip. hang in there. all in gods time.

Tracey and Chuck said...

That is crazy but I remember when we had to do the Sex Offenders clearance something came up for my husband too and we freaked out a little but his ended up being the same as Jason's....different middle initial so all was fine!!! Hoping to hear great news coming from your way soon of a court date!

Masha said...

Thankfully you are much more calm than I am because it would have been panic and tears at this point. Happy to hear everything was promptly resolved!

Doug and Shelly said...

Funny--but I know it was not at the time!!!! Praying that you get those papers from Russia this week!!

Amy and Corey said...

Gosh, and I thought this sort of stuff only happened to me. I'm so glad you got it all sorted out.

And Sabrina, sometimes the sex offender clearance is part of the home study...it was for us...so you may have cleared it and not even known it.

Jen Grant said...

That is crazy about the terrorist and criminal backgrounds - how scary!