[2oldmom]

Hi All...We live in Georgia and adopted a child from Asia. We were told that in order to make sure our child never has problems obtaining a US Birth Certificate, we should readopt her once we arrived back home in the USA. I have heard there is a way that we can readopt our child and do the paperwork ourselves, without obtaining a lawyer and paying them to help us. Has anyone done this or heard anything about it? If so, please give me as much info as possible. We have spent so much money already don't have much to spend.
Thank You!

[DPline]

If you don't get a response here, try cross posting on the Guatemalan board. Readoption is quite common regardless of visa type with children from Guatemala and I know there are at least a couple people on that board who are from Georgia and should be able to give you specifics.

Good luck!

[sak9645]

Each state is different. Some states make the process so easy that you don't need an attorney and can complete the paperwork easily. Others treat it much like an initial adoption, and require a lot of things like an updated homestudy, updated child abuse and criminal records checks, post-placement visits, and so on. Some of these make the process so complicated that use of an attorney is required or highly recommended.

I readopted in DC, before the recent change in DC law that simplified readoption dramatically. I used an attorney because Superior Court was a zoo at the best of times, and because the process was almost exactly the same as for domestic adoption -- fairly complicated. Even with using one of the most experienced adoption attorneys in the region, I had a situation where the court managed to lose some of the paperwork and the judge sent us a "nastygram" about it; I would have freaked out, if my lawyer hadn't managed to smooth the judge's feathers and get new documents to him.

Interestingly, one of my friends is an attorney, though not an adoption attorney, and she actually retained the same lawyer I did to handle the DC readoption of her first child. So you can imagine that the now-changed process was a bit of a nightmare.

Sharon

[momofMikhail]

I know it's different in every state, and we aren't in Georgia, but here in N.C. all we did was call the courts and they gave us the documents we needed filed. We did have to have a new homesteady done, but our local child service department did it for free. And yes we did an international adoption also. In all it cost us about $80 for court cost and thats it. I would start by calling your local court and seeing what they suggest.