make lemonade

The Universe is raining "screw you" on us.

I got am email from my cousin last night saying that she'd received some paperwork for us (we have official documents sent to her house in our absence) that was requesting more identifying documents for our son, that I hadn't yet sent two. Except I've already sent them color copies of his birth certificate, his passport, his permanent resident card, and I think his care card. I'm not sure what other identifying documents for a 6-year-old there could possibly be - he already has more than any other 6-year-old I know. I'd call that a minor irritation, since I've already sent color copies of all of these twice, and black and white once.

But then today, I go to check our bank account, because upon checking it on Wednesday, it said the funds from the check for our house sale would be available today. Except it said that the funds had been reversed. Reversed? Of course I call to see what had happened, because this is all of the money we have in the world, and we do have bills to pay, like credit card and insurance. 

When we sold our house in Canada, I went to the bank to consolidate the funds with our bank account, then take that money and transfer it into a US account. I wanted to wire the money, but the women at the bank insisted it would be much faster and better to take the funds in one check and deposit it into my account in the US - because if we wired the $ and somehow the funds didn't go through, or some such (because there would be a delay in the funds being in the bank and being wired). At any rate, they convinced us to take a check instead. Two women did, in fact - the teller I was working with and her superior. They spoke to me at length about why taking a check would be a better idea. Finally I figured they knew what they were talking about (being bank employees and doing this sort of thing much more often than I ever have). I even called my husband, told him what they had said and their reasoning, and he said okay, too. After all, they're the experts, right?

It's been 10 business days, at which point we were told the funds would be released to us. Except? Not. When I called to find out why, I was informed by our US bank that this "process" could take 6-8 weeks, because the funds are on hold by the originating bank. My husband calls the originating bank and finds out that because the original funds were Canadian and we wanted to transfer them to US, it had to go through other banks for some reason that still remains a mystery. Now, when the check was issued to me by these "experts", they said I should take it in US funds because our US bank would probably give us a better return in conversion. SO I did. See, I still believed that because they worked there (and one of them was a superior), they had some idea of what they were talking about. After all, I had never done this before. 

Silly me. Our US bank suggested we ask the originating bank to stop payment on the check and then just go ahead and wire the money. Except according to them, it is halfway through "the process" and that cannot happen. As if "the process" were actually some physical act. It's just a bunch of numbers on different screens in different databases! It's a bank! how can they NOT have the power to stop their own "processes"?!?  


The branch manager is supposed to call back later today and probably blow more smoke up our asses about why they cannot give us our own money for an indefinite period of time. And that it is ALL THE MONEY WE HAVE IN THE WORLD? I don't know how to even function right now, I am so upset. 'Upset' seems inadequate to describe my mental state right now.

Okay, you know what? I get it, #firstworldproblems. 

I am happy that my family is all in good health and alive. I'm happy that we are in the midst of a lovely visit with our families right now, and we are in no danger of losing our home or something from this. I'm glad we decided to be here for a month on a visit and then housesit, so really, even if this does take 8 weeks, we don't have a rent or mortgage to pay and we don't lose our house or something. I'm really glad we have relatives who are not only willing, but offering to float us until those funds clear - including transferring money into our account so we can pay said bills. I'm happy that I've got this beautiful kid next to me who is wanting nothing more than to snuggle with me and be loved by me. 

I've lived through the loss of my first child - I can get through this. It's only money, right? We're taken care of. We'll be fine. At least they haven't LOST the money - it's just being held indefinitely. I can breathe.