[lisan]

Our date to go to court is next Wednesday - exactly 6 months after DD was placed with us. So, what exactly happens at court? Does the judge just look over the paperwork from our attorney and the agency and then issue some sort of what? Does he/she ask us any questions?



Once the judge orders the adoption finalized...then what happens? The court will file papers to change her name, correct? And...seal the original birth certificate - then issue a new one, right? How long, after our court date on Wednesday, until we can order a birth certificate?



The reason I'm asking is that we are hoping to travel to Europe over Christmas, but, of course, we need a birth certificate (and then SSN), to get a passport! I know, we're pushing it. Fortunately, I have flight benefits, so it's not a big deal if we decide to go to Hawaii instead...but, my MIL seems to think that it will take months! I know that once we are "able" to order the new certificate, we can expedite and have it in 7-10 business days; but, how long after our day in court will that take?


Thanks in advance for any help!
-Lisa

[shy_bear]

We finalized in TX with our 2nd adoption. You stand around for awhile and then go in. You are literally in there for a couple of minutes. Our judge asked us to verify who we were, who the baby was, and if we understood that our daughter will have all the legal rights of an heir to us. She looked over some papers. Asked what her legal name was going to be and we were done. We took a couple of photos with the judge. We went down and verified address for the birthcertificate and the county gave us a mock bc to celebrate the occasion.
As far as how long it took to get the bc. We finalized in Oct. and we were moving the following June, in April I started calling and we ended up getting it before we left TX. Now that was 5 years ago so it may be faster now.

[BrandyHagz]

I am doing a step parent adoption in Arizona, but the OBC was issued in Texas - I was told to expect Texas to take six to nine months to get the request, make the change, seal the OBC and Issue the order to Amend.

Texas is painfully slow...just ordering a regular old BC takes more than six weeks.

[traceyk]

I second that! We live in CT but adopted from TX and it took FOREVER and a bunch of phone calls to get her b-cert. I would plan to apply for a ATIN number for taxes