We didn't have to re-adopt Chloe in the U.S. She came home on a different visa and was granted U.S. citizenship when she landed on U.S. soil. This readoption process is new to us but we have been told that it can be done on your own without an attorney, which is what we have opted to do.
About a month after we returned home I made some calls and found the correct agency/department in our county that handles adoptions. I was told we couldn't file to readopt Oliver until he had been home 6 months. Each state handles their re-adoption/adoption processes differently and NJ prefers a child is home 6 months before you file to adopt. It can be filed before the 6 months, but it takes several court appearances and more money and homestudies--in other words, they try to make it a pain so you don't do it before 6 months.
In July, I contacted our county surrogate's office, received the instructions and began preparing the items needed to readopt. Talk about more paperwork, more notary fees, etc. We also have to relinquish original documents from Ethiopia that we aren't willing to part with so we have to contact an attorney to certify that we made copies of original documents.
A photo of the 2 lbs. of adoption paperwork and legal filings we have to complete for Oliver's readoption.
In other words, this process isn't as cut and dry as we thought it was going to be and now I've learned that court hearing for readoption are being scheduled three-months out!! I'm kind of panicking now, worried that we won't make the 1 year cut off.
We also thought we would go ahead and readopt Chloe while we did Oliver so she could have a U.S. birth certificate. We learned that we can't readopt her in NJ because when we adopted her we lived in Texas and our homestudy agency is in Texas and in order to readopt in NJ, they must be a licensed NJ adoption agency. I'm still waiting to hear back to see if it can be done, but right now, we are proceeding with just Oliver's readoption. Can't anything be easy?
2 comments
Not to make you life more complicated... but are you sure you need to 're adopt'. Most states are now doing a 'recognition of foreign adoption' instead of a full readoption. PAI. Yes. More fee's yes. But much easier than 'readoption'. And you still get the birth certificate.
Hmm never heard of recognition of foreign adoption, sound easier. Sorry you are having to deal with all the pain in the butt..hope it all falls into place soon. WA state wasn't too bad to readopt through. Its strange why all states are different when the kids are all international
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