What about Texas- birth certificates

I'm still waiting for the amended bc from my son's step parent adoption in Texas 12/23 will be one year since finalization - the paperwork was sent to Texas on 1/25 - Texas is still 'processing' it.

I sure wish I could say I am surprised! This is the state where I called for information on adopting through foster care. I had a homestudy and was willing to take severely disabled children, and they would not return my calls! They make a big deal about how they are trying to find homes for children and then won't return calls to someone interested? It makes no sense. However they seem to have no problem dealing with sending kids to other states, they just don't seem to want to let people in the state adopt easily. They lost out since I ended up going foreign again and dh says no more kids for a while.

Readoption is not required in the State of Texas. For those who want a US Birth Certificate, you can opt to do a readoption. This is generally done with the help of an attorney for a fee. However, in Texas, you can also get a US Birth Certificate without having to process a re-adoption. This is done through county courts in a process of "Recognition of foreign adoption". The process does not require an attorney (or social worker, agency documents etc.) You have to submit a form, a nominal fee, and several notarized documents from your Russian adoption. The judge will issue a court order recognizing your adoption and you submit this court order to obtain a Texas Birth Certificate for your child. As in most States, the BC still shows Russia as the place of birth. I have not done this - maybe some day - and am not sure if the "Recognition" option allows a name change or not if you want one. If a name change is allowed, then I don't see the benefit of doing a readoption instead.

We did the "Recognition of Foreign Adoption" for Julia. You can do it yourself - plenty of folks here have, including alphi86. Keith and I paid an att'y $100 to do it because we didn't want to risk more time off work in court. May or may not have been required, but we couldn't risk it. Here are the instructions as posted by a member last year: For our daughter'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: [url=http://www.dshs.state.tx.us]Texas Department of State Health Services[/url] 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 hername 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. Becky [url=http://www.woodworthfamily.blogdrive.com]The Woodworth Family in Beautiful San Antonio TX[/url]

Thanks! This will help

Thanks! This

Thanks! This will help a

Thanks! This will help a lot.

We completed this process (as described in Becky's post) and found it to be fairly easy. I did not hire an attorney; however, (1) I am not particularly intimidated by legal documents and (2) I only work part-time, so that certainly made the process easier. $100 for an attorney's assistance sounds very fair to me if you are time-crunched or overwhelmed by the legal process. Our son's birth certificate was issued in a timely manner (just a few weeks). We completed this in the summer of 2006. Good luck!

We adopted through foster care. It was final in May and we had the new birth certificate before school started. We were told that it could take at least 6 months but it was really quick.