How to get Birth Certificate

Some states require readoption before a state birth certificate can be issued to an internationally adopted child, but others do not. You can find out the requirements by contacting your state's Vital Records office. If your state requires readoption before a birth certificate is issued, your attorney may handle sending the final decree to the Vital Records office as soon as it's issued. Otherwise, you will do it yourself, providing the foreign and state adoption decrees and the foreign birth certificate. If your state does not require readoption, you will simply need to provide proof of the overseas birth of your adopted child, and of your valid adoption. Again, Vital Records can advise you. Do remember that, if your child's American name does not appear on his/her adoption paperwork, you will need to do a legal change of name to get it on a state birth certificate. Most adoptive parents do legal changes of name as part of the readoption process. The lawyer simply advises the judge to include in the order a statement to the effect that "the child formerly known as Zeng Chufang is now to be known as Rebecca Joy Chufang K.....n." However, all states have a legal change of name process that can be used by anyone, adopted or not; you may want to check into the process in your state if you do not have to readopt and do not choose to readopt. Sharon