paperwork once you are home: Validation, Readoption, finalization, birth certificate

2. Apply for the validation of foreign adoption (also called re-adopt or finalization). (El Paso County COLORADO forms if you are in another state just look up your county or state government page and look for forms or information, then look for the word adoptions and then under that validation of foreign adoptions, this should come up with info for you). On this form you can also change your child's name. In many cases the child will not come home with the name you would like for him or her to have, and in many cases will not even have your last name. In many states you can also change the child's birth date if needed. See post on birth date change.  There are varying degrees of proof needed for this depending on your county and state. I would suggest doing this only if it is really needed. In Colorado, I added this to the form under the change of name. I also wrote a letter stating our reasons and attached the "proof" documents. It worked out just fine for us. If you do this first your child's name will be correct on all the rest of the official papers and you will not have to redo it. You have to do this before you can get the citizenship papers anyway. Get the fingerprint reports (FBI and state) and the child abuse record/clearance from your DHS from your adoption agency, ally need is the copies they have on file. Your window of time for them to remain valid is important. Get it done fast or you will need to renew them. That is ok and not too expensive, it just takes time. If you are waiting on age of child to change the birth date, you have time, do the fingerprints again and wait on them to come and your child's progress at the same time. The fee for this in CO is $168 (this is from 2010 and will go up with each year) per child if they are not biologically related, $168 if they are blood related and a $3 charge for each additional blood related child. After you validate the adoption your child WILL be a legal citizen however will still only have the green card, why I don't know. This process and paper does not prove your child's citizenship by parentage. So you have to file for the proof of citizenship.

**A few notes from our experience. *On the Report of Adoption put your child's name that you are changing it to, not their original name.

*** I do not know if you have to do the Validation if you came home on an IR3 Visa. They are already citizens. 

2b. *After your hearing you will walk the files over to the COURT records, not the county records, this is MOST likely in the same building you had your hearing in. We were actually told the county.... ha! *You can then buy some copies of the decree. They are $30-40 each (2010). This will be filed and sealed and you will have to have a court motion to open it again and so you need the copies as you will not be able to access this again with ease. *Then you wait for the letter in the mail from the state department that handles adoption birth certificates. For us that is in Denver. Then you send them the money and they send you the certificates. This gets you a state validation foreign birth certificate, which is useful and highly necessary. However, it states right on it that it is not proof of citizenship. In some instances it also can not be used as a proof of date of birth, identity because it is a certificate of foreign birth, so essentially they are still birth certificate-less.  It also says that it is just a certificate certifying foreign birth.... which is about as good as it gets if you don't have any clue when that precious child of yours was actually born. There is a fee here. In CO it is about $38 per child (2010). You can buy extra ones for a discount at this time. Sounds like a good idea. One for the lock box and one for use. Once you get the birth certificates you can file for proof of citizenship. Unlike the Validation you CAN order more of these at any time.