Recognition Of Foreign Adoption

It's been almost 3.5 years since Rex came home and we have never managed to re-adopt him or Emilia who has been home over three years, too.

I must have printed out the documents necessary for a re-adoption of a foreign-born child in Ohio at least three times and started to fill in the blank fields.  It's quite a stack of paper and it was always times two.  Some of the documents made me feel overwhelmed with the information required.  Every single time I just ended up scooping the papers into a pile and stashing them out of sight for later when I had more time and patience to complete them.  Really, the whole process seemed too much to handle, given that we were thrown into special needs parenting way beyond what we expected and all-consumed with caring for our kids.  It was not just the documents, but also having to show up for a court hearing, the fees, etc.

After Ella came home, I decided to try again to see if I could complete the paperwork and get this process rolling.  As I was poking around online, I saw that there's a new option now: a Recognition of Foreign Adoption as opposed to a Re-adoption. At this time, I am not really interested in new adoption certificates, but did want Ohio birth certificates for the kids to make my life easier as they start enrolling in school etc.  The recognition process only costs $50 per child and I only had to show some original adoption paperwork from the birth countries as well as complete three simple documents which I filed in person at the county probate court where a magistrate signed them immediately.  Then they were sent off to the Office of Vital Statistics for the issuance of new birth certificates (including corrected spelling of first names and addition of middle names for Rex and Ella). I was told to wait a month and then go ahead and order copies of the birth certificates.

So, the month passed and I called Vital Stats to see if the certificates were ready.  They were, but we discovered over the phone a spelling error in Emilia's middle name, so I had to submit an affidavit to get that rectified.  Always lovely when the state makes a mistake and the citizen has to provide a notarized document to set things straight.  The correction only took a day and then we stopped by a local branch of our Office of Vital Statistics and picked up crisp new Ohio birth certificates for our children, each one reflecting the names we always wanted them to have.

I am incredibly relieved that we have managed to complete this process and possess state documents now to prove we're the parents of these three treasures.