[MyHeartsDesire]

Just wondering which avenue to go down to do this. I'm not really sure how to begin. I've been told by the Texas Dept of Health that it must be done through an "accredited court" but I don't really know what that means. I've always heard that I have to travel to Austin and if so, do I find an attorney there? I've also been told that people have gotten their congressmen involved??? How and for what?? I'm very confused and probably need to be doing this pretty soon as Gavin has turned 3 and we want to have a Texas birth certificate before he enters school.

Thanks for any help
Lisa

[papedge]

mikeintexas will hopefully post to you they did there own to get a US birthcertificate

[mikeintexas]

Yes indeed - here are the instructions. Do not pay thousands of dollars to a lawyer. This procedure worked just fine for us and for just a few hundred bucks. Thanks to Mrs. Mikeintexas for this work... I can't take the credit. Here ya go:

---
For Julia’s Texas birth certificate we printed forms and turned them in at our local courthouse, were assigned a court date and received the actual birth certificate – hooray! To start, go to the website for Texas Department of State Health Services: www.dshs.state.tx.us
Click on Birth/Death Certificates, Request Processing, General Info – forms, Adoption forms and print the forms: Certificate of Adoption and Instructions, Validation Order, Validation Petition.

First we completed the Validation Petition form APPLICATION FOR ORDER RECOGNIZING VALIDITY OF FOREIGN DECREE OF ADOPTION, NOTARIAL ACT OF ADOPTION, AND FOR CHANGE OF NAME. Even though Julia’s name was already changed by the Russian court we still had to fill it out again as a name change in part IV. We attached photocopies of the adoption decree, birth certificate and adoption certificate, and we attached both the translated and Russian pages. At the bottom of the page we crossed out the words “Attorney for the” and both signed above the line as Petitioners. We also filled out the information we could on the ORDER which is what the judge actually signs. We took this paperwork to the District Clerk’s Office at the county courthouse where someone accepted the papers and gave us a copy of both documents with their stamp on it. We paid the fees and were given a name of the Court Coordinator in our district and told to call her in a week to see when our court date would be. Following are the fees we paid:
District Clerk Filing Fee/Adoption $ 51
State Fee/Family Cases 45
ADR/DC 10
Record Preservation Fund/DC 10
Courthouse Security/DC 5
Law Library Fund/DC 20
Sheriff’s Jury Fee/DC 5
Court Reporter Fee/DC 15
TOTAL $161

The next step was to fill out the CERTIFICATE OF ADOPTION and we were told to take that to court with us. We completed Sections 1 and 2 then the rest is ok if you don’t know the information, just put “not known” (we filled in the agency info). After waiting a week I called the Court Coordinator and she told us a date and time for the court hearing. When the appointed time arrived we took Julia with us and went to court. The judge asked a few questions just to verify names and information then he completed the ORDER and gave the file to a clerk and we were finished. I did give him the CERTIFICATE OF ADOPTION and told him we were told to give it to him and he just put it in the file. So we left.

After a few days I called the judge’s clerk to see what happens next. She said to come right down and get a certified copy of the signed ORDER because it would be sealed and then we would never get a copy! (Whew, glad I called! This is where a lawyer would have known what to do!) So I went right down to the courthouse and the clerk made 4 certified copies for me where they stamped the bottom and marked it with the seal. She also filled out Section 4 on the CERTIFICATE OF ADOPTION.

The next step was for us to follow mailing instructions on CERTIFICATE OF ADOPTION INSTRUCTIONS (under Section 4). So we mailed the CERTIFICATE OF ADOPTION and one certified copy of the ORDER (will keep other 3 copies in safe deposit box with Russian originals) to Texas Vital Statistics. We were told to include a check for $36, which is the $25 for BORN IN TEXAS OR FOREIGN COUNTRY and $11 for ONE CERTIFIED COPY OF NEW BIRTH RECORD. We were told it takes 10-12 weeks to get the Texas birth certificate and we actually received the birth certificate after 10 weeks.