Stress and joy

Holy crap, things have been crazy lately!
So just 25 days left till baby Frank's due date, but who knows what that really means!
Last Monday Ryan and I flew from Mexico to Madison. The trip was a success and I was really grateful that I didn't really have a swelling issue or any other discomforts. In fact I was feeling so confident about my state of being that when the flight attendant offered vouchers for a later flight, Ryan and I were the first ones to the counter. I love free miles!
Then I ran amock last week, spending time with my Mother, trying to get prenatal classes finshed and meeting my Dr. for the first time (weird saying that at 36 weeks!). He is... interesting. Great Dr., totally different than what I was expecting though.
Then Friday afternoon I was working out all the kinks to getting Doodle back to Mexico after he is born. Screeeeech, eeeeek, ahhhh! Apparently, you can't take an infant over the border with just a birth certificate (unless you are by land or sea), which is what I had been told. He needs a passport after all... yeah those take a little while. So does that social security card that the passport app requires... and so does that birth certificate that the social security card app requires!! and of course it was 3:30 on a Friday when I figured this all out, three days after I am no longer advised to fly internationally! Ahh, I was about to turn my little hiney right back around and sneak onto the next flight to Mexico City. I was so stressed and there was no way I was sitting in the US for the first two-three months of my baby's life without my hubby.
I called different agencies incessantly till the clock tocked five. Dang passport call center kept feeding Ryan and I different info about it all, you need a social security #, then you don't. It was 2 to 1, not in our favor at five. Ryan felt pretty confident that this was all going to be okay and that in some weird way it was supposed to happen. Hannah's thought: Yeah, maybe it was supposed to happen to prove what irresponsible parents we will be! (When I panic, optimism is not my strength!)
So after worrying for the next couple days Ryan left on a jet plane Sunday afternoon, back to Mexico for work. Then bright and early Monday morn, I called the different birth certificate people to see if I could get a rush on that. Ryan called the passport agency and good news!!! We don't need a social security card, we can get the passport processed in a day and no longer than two weeks, and I am going to be put on the list as a priority for the birth certificate to be processed, so no more than a two week wait, and prob much shorter! Woooopeeee!

So, if all our sources check out, we will be sitting pretty on the airplane sometime in April.
If not, we will resort to plan b: travel by land or sea (that would be.... interesting).

Moral of the story:

Don't wait to get these sorts of gov't documents for your wee one. It takes forever and you will be grateful you don't have to worry about this sort of thing when you decide to travel, if you just get it done in the beginning!