Adoption Decree Headache

I'm sitting with my hot chocolate recovering from the headache I've had since Saturday night when I actually looked carefully at E.R.'s brand new adoption decree.

If you aren't familiar with adoption, once a child is adopted internationally, they generally need to be re-adopted in their state (depending on their state). So all their international paperwork has to be filed in a local court, and then a judge finalizes their adoption in their new state. From this they can get a birth certificate from their state, and a SS card. There are other ways and orders to getting these documents - but that is how we did it.

So on Friday, her decree came in the mail! This means her adoption is recognized here in our Oregon court. Huge waves of relief washed over me to see that piece of paper and to know that process was over.

Then Saturday night I read it carefully and to my horror, I realized that where her birthday should have been, was instead her placement date. That means that according to our new decree E.R. is not 2 1/2 years old, but about 7 months old! Ahhhh!!!

Since this is the process we used to get her an Oregon birth certificate and SS card, I was having huge anxiety about how to halt the paper trail that had been started. The last thing I want is for her birthdate to be 2 years off! I told our pediatrician about it early this morning at J.T.'s appt. and she joked that I would have to homeschool E.R. since there is no way she could wait until she was 7 to start kindergarten, and a school wouldn't register her if she was only 3 on paper! I tried to manage a pained smile to acknowledge her humor, but that was about all I could muster, since at that moment I felt no humor in someone's mistake that created such a huge headache for us.

I decided my best bet was to get over to the courthouse in person to get things straightened out. So I lugged E.R. on my back in my Ergo carrier, and J.T. rode in a little stroller. I smiled kindly but unapologetically at the ugly glares I received from the security guard, knowing full well there is an unwritten rule about bringing kids into a courthouse. I was determined to get those 2 years back for this little girl who had been through too much in her life to be robbed of any of it. And there is NO WAY that she wants to be J.T.'s YOUNGER sister!

So I carried J.T.'s stroller, clutching our adoption documents, down several flights of stairs to the basement. The lady who works down there was definitely shocked to see us coming in the door of her quiet office. I just about knocked her over with kindness - which usually works with grumpy court folks (thank you Lord for all the time I've spent in courthouses). In these situations it usually works to play dumb about any procedures you actually may understand, and just be a really honest, pleasant, confused person in need of the expertise that only the person in front of you can provide. By the time we left she was actually trying to pronounce "Elmo" in response to E.R.'s babbling conversation about her Elmo sticker.

Turns out that the decree is not sent on to the birth certificate office. All of our court documents were correct, so much to my relief, my panic can now subside. E.R. will remain 2 1/2, and our new friend in the courthouse basement whipped up a new, correct adoption decree for us. When she handed it to me, I exclaimed "That is a beautiful thing!!", and she almost smiled.

We headed out into the freezing cold Oregon morning chatting and cheering about how E.R. was 2 again. The attorney walking in front of us turned around to smile as E.R. was yelling "Woo-Hoo!!" and pumping her fist in the air about being 2 again.

It's almost as if she understood everything we just went through - which makes her so much older than 7 months...