Tomorrow's THE day

Tomorrow is THE day in which we'll be going to the Mastraati (I apologize for my horrible Finnish spelling) and telling them that yes, we are married...and have been married since February 2007.
For those that are new to my blog - welcome and here's the quickest version of why we need to prove our marriage.

My husband and I are both Canadian and came here in August of 2009 for him to do his doctoral program (research etc.).  I was pregnant and was advised by the Mastraati that we must prove our marriage because we were married outside of Finland.  I thought our passports were good enough as they are a Canadian Government issued document (also "issued" by the Queen if we want to be specific) - however it doesn't bear my maiden name on it.  Ugh.
So that was back in October and we had our marriage documents in storage in Nova Scotia.  Thankfully my parents don't live far from the storage location so they dug around and found our things and mailed it to us.  It wasn't good enough for the Mastraati because it had to be signed and stamped by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  We sent it there and they sent it back because "it was the wrong form".
Fast forward to about April - we got everything sorted and re-sent to Ministry of Foreign Affairs to have it sent back stating that our Passport copies were to be officiated not by the Mastraati but by a Canadian Official.  Fast forward to May 9 - we sent everything and waited.
So after weeks of waiting (they finally got around to processing it around June 28th) we finally received our documents last week.
The problem is that my husband forgot to put my birth certificate in there.  However the "proper" form does state my name at birth - so hopefully that will be sufficient for them.
The actual reason for needing us to be "married" in Finland?  We gave birth to a son early November and there isn't a father listed.  We could apply for his Canadian Citizenship papers and Canadian Passport with me as sole guardian and parent - however, if anything happened to me - well that would be difficult for Tim to claim guardianship.  And it makes it harder (and more costly I believe) to have to add my husband's name later on.

For those that have never dealt with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Canada - they are a pain in the neck (very incredibly politely speaking).  Their site states to contact "the Embassy prior to contacting us".  Well - since it doesn't clearly state which Embassy to contact - we tried to contact them directly first by leaving a voice mail (2 business days they'll return your call is the message - this is not true - they don't return calls) and by sending a professional email (up to 7 business days to expect a response - also not true - they do not write back).
We gave up on their lack of response and guessed to contact the Canadian Embassy in Helsinki.  The person there, who knows us on first names basis (we've contacted them a lot about our problem), got a response in less than 12 hours.  HOW?
So if you ever have to deal with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - good luck.

My son, V�in� and I, have missed out on a trip back to Canada in May and a trip to Greece coming up at the end of this month, while my husband attends and presents in some conferences.
It's quite frustrating as you can imagine because he is the first born grandchild on both sides of the family and I do miss home quite a bit.  I do call Finland home now - as we've been here for 11 months - but I still do not speak the language and we just moved to a new area (Kortepohja) so I'm still trying to learn my way around.
I can't even pronounce my street name.  Jeeze.

Oh and for those that are wondering - yes we probably could've went to Helsinki and dealt with their Mastraati there - however it may have been a waste of time as V�in� is born in Jyv�skyl� - they may have rejected our application to get things sorted out.

Here's hoping all goes well tomorrow