More Consulate Madness

Well now, I am pretty sure that because we married in Ohio we have to register the marriage w/the Chicago Consulate. Which would be fine except...Chicago Consulate has different instructions than Los Angeles. Most importantly, the instruction that states that all civil acts that occur in the US must have an Apostille and it tells you where you can obtain the Apostille, but of course it only lists states within that consular district.

I thought, well this is crazy, we can probably contact New Mexico's Honorary Consul for assistance...but guess what??
English Page: there is none listed on the consulate's website!
French Page: Oh, I am so shocked that there is different information in French!

Here's the contact information from the French site...

M. Perry E. Bendicksen III Consul Honoraire au Nouveau Mexique 201 Third Street NW, Suite 1700, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102-4386 Tel : (505) 244-0770 - Fax : (505) 244-9266 E-mail : pbendickesen@bhfs.com

There has got to be a better way to do this! If not, it means I would have to take the following steps before even thinking about a visa for me or Cedric:

1. Contact Ohio's Secretary of State to get an Apostille for our abstract of marriage/marriage certificate
2. Get extra copies of the abstract just in case.
3. Contact Chicago Consulate to register our marriage and get a Livret de Famille.
4. Send Cedric's birth certificate (and the Livret?) to Los Angeles Consulate

It doesn't sound like a lot of steps, but this could easily take 3 months!

I know that we can get help from someone in Albuquerque to streamline the process! So I'm not going to fret, I'm going to contact the Honorary Consul tomorrow and see what I can find out.