Obtaining US passport for your child

and now I have a social security question too as I fill out these forms.. for full name at birth what did you put - I have a birth certificate with our names and Aisling's current name on it...should I just leave it blank?

But we got our passports for our two boys in December and there was no problem at all getting back the originals of everything... I'm in Memphis so we really had no option to go to a regional office since our regional office WAS New Orleans... now handled by Charleston SC. Same thing for registering them at the Russian embassy, you send away all the orginals and hope for the best... I think we have done everything that involves the scary "sending away" of things since we've been home for almost two years now but I sure understand the feeling. alli

I sent mine too. I did pay for expedited service, so that the docs would come back faster.

Thanks ladies - I work in Boston a couple blocks from the passport office - so it is just as easy for me to go there as my local office but not sure if I would have to send them in anyway.

waitinginnj, how much was expidited and how long did it take? thanks

Gosh - I applied for passport almost immediately, but that was two years ago for me. I think it was an extra $30? And, I paid for them to Fedex, I think. When I adopted, you didn't get citizenship papers automatically, so I wanted some proof of her citizenship. I later finished the readoption, applied for the citizenship papers etc.

It's $60 now for the expedite service but it's a 2 week turnaround instead of 6 weeks... And I didn't realize parents have to appear together for the passport so I guess that answers my question about going to Boston since I doubt DH wants to be dragged into the city... Thanks for the tip Waiting!

That is right - In a two parent household both parents have to sign for a passport. It is built into to help with international kidnapping type of situations. Both parents have to know that the child has a passport. I forget that as I am a single parent household. The $60 could have been the rate or it may have gone up. I really don't recall. She will be using her passport though in May for a cruise, so that is exciting. I used it for ID for one other plane ride - but this is the first time that she will be outside of the USA since coming home. I am sure that everyone's paperwork will be returned safely.

HI Karen - We also had to have Tim there in person when we did the application. Most of the bigger post offices let you apply in person there - I'm guessing there's one in or around your place if Eric isnt up for trekking into the city. And we used the name given by us for the passport

and get it notarized to take with you to the passport office.. there is a form online and I did that with my husband since he was out of town when I wanted to go do it. Luckily, in my office at work are a zillion notaries ...in fact, they just notarized the paper and then i had my husband sign it after the fact... i've worked here for years and they all notarized so many papers for us for Russia a couple of years ago they are used to it! alli

I just found out that my state does provide a birth certificate (or some kind of certificate) through a process called domestication of foreign adoption. Does anyone know if I can us this form instead of their Russian birth certs to get their US passports?

Tracy - that state birth certificate should work - they just want something to prove you are your child's parents. I actually gave them our adoption cert with the translation. FWIW - the instructions they had at the passport office didn't even include the COC as an authorized document of citizenship. Fortunately the women trusted me (and I had the thing from the embassy). They also wanted the Russian passport as well - they said it's better to have more than not enough. So I gave them the form with Russian passport, COC and adoption certificate with translation. As well as $112 plus another 30 for the actual passport...yikes... On a good note - social security was relatively easy - the woman processing had never done a card for someone adopted for so she looked at me like I had 2 heads when I confirmed I needed a number for my 2 year old. They told me they couldn't give me the number - I would have to come back the next day because the system hadn't assigned one yet. Fortunately I got the card in the mail today - so that wasn't even a week. Yea! Oh and I left the "full name at birth" part blank and no one questioned it. Thanks for the help! Karen

Here is the form "leeinmemphis" mentioned in an earlier post. It is called "Statement of Consent or Special Circumstances: Issuance of a U.S. Passport to a Minor Under Age 14." Just fill it out and have it notarized. My husband is in the military and was unable to go to the passport office with me, so we used this form. No problems at all....no questions asked. Also, we paid the extra fee to get my son's passport expedited through the Chicago office. They told us 2 weeks, however, we received it within 1 week!! That was April 2005. [url]http://foia.state.gov/FORMS/Passport/ds3053.pdf[/url]

We used our state issued Certificate of Foreign birth. We actually purchased extra copies of it. We did not have to include any Russian documents.