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I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this question, but it seemed like the most appropriate....
A short background: We're adopting our son from foster care. He went into the system at 2 days old and came to us at 5 months. His first foster family was in love with him and we see them periodically, although I haven't received a response from them in awhile, so I'm not sure if that relationship will continue. His birthfamily has never shown an interest in seeing him, except his grandmother, who showed up at his court dates to see him. The last time, she said she and her family didn't want any further contact b/c it was too hard for them. She just wanted to know he was going to a good family. She has since ignored the one email I sent her.
One year later, we're FINALLY out of DCS and into adoption court, and it'll be final in a couple of months. The new caseworker just asked us if we wanted to have his place of birth removed from his birth certificate. I asked her why we would or wouldn't want to do this, and she had no answer.
I'm thinking it might be good in a closed situation to really keep anyone from finding him unless he wants to be found. But I'm not really sure in our case that it's necessary.
Can anyone shed some light on reasons for or against doing this? We will be getting him a new birth certificate with his legal name, listing us as his parents.
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It does list my city of birth - however, the 'long form' is also supposed to have the hospital/birthing center as well - since mine was removed and sealed - I have no access to it :(Funniest communication from the State Department regarding this fiasco thus far is my proving my 'citizenship' by doing a DNA test with my parents.My adopted parents.Remember - my records are sealed, so in the eyes of the law, my birth parents don't exist.:D
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I left my daughter's POB as the original city where she was born. (It was in a Central American country.) When she got old enough to need to use it for obtaining a DL, proof of age to work, etc. having her real POB caused problems. In fact, a copy was siezed by the GA. State Patrol and we were accused of being illegal aliens, forgers and possible terrorists. The BC was sent to someone at Homeland Security. I left her original birthplace to honor her heritage, but if I had it to do over again I would have put Anytown, USA and saved us a lot of grief.
Make sure you get a certified copy of the original BC before the changes are made. If your child ever needs it then situations like Brandy's can be avoided. Our BC will only have the name of the parents changed.
We are adopting from foster care with a semi-open adoption agreement of 4 visits a year and pics and updates. I am completely appalled that the original birth certificate is altered in any way, but that is the way the law is, so it has to be done. I my mind, replacing the bio parents name with our names as birth parents just rubs me the wrong way. It's legal fraud. I hope that one day the legal system finds a better way to show we are the legal parents and have changed the name of our child without altering the written history as though it never happened. I do understand the need to hide some foster children from bios, but in our case there should be an alternative.
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I too don't really like that our names are replaced by the bparents. To me it is that we are erasing the child's history. The other thing is that we adopt older children and our ages at birth are placed on there, so I keep ghetting younger and younger when I have kids. I am down to 17 years old and say we adopt a 16 year old the BC would say I was 15 when I had that child. My adoption SW said that they had a BC changed once stating that the person was 5 when they gave birth to the child. It was a sister adopting her brother.
CaddoRose has given you very good advice regarding obtaining a certified (raised seal) original birth certificate. Put it in a place that will ensure it is never lost. Once the adoption is final that birth certificate will never be available to your child without a court order that probably will not be granted. It does not matter if your child is 20 or 70 years old they will be denied access. Do not change anything you do not legally have to change. This is your child's history and to change it is to lie and that lie can be devastating to the one person who has no say in it - your child. Kind regards,Dickons
Thanks for all the opinions!I haven't looked at my BC in awhile, but I'm pretty sure it just lists my parents' names. I don't think it says, "was born to" on it. Just names and dates. Since we'll be his parents, why shouldn't we be listed as such?I do understand not wanting to rewrite history or cover anything up. I'm all about full disclosure and keeping things as pure as possible. But I'm going to be his mom (I already am, just not legally). So I'm not so uncomfortable with taking her name off the BC and putting mine on. Is that weird? I guess I don't see it as a moment frozen in time that's being changed. It's just an ID.I'm not going to withhold any info from him. Whatever he wants to know, he'll know if I have the information. I'm saving his entire record from the state so he can read it himself when he's old enough to be interested. I have no desire to create a lie here, just trying to protect him as best I can without creating more problems.I will ask about a copy of the original before it's changed. I think that would be a great way to show him how his life started, and it sounds like it will also help cut down on bureaucracy later on.
SWD, No one is telling you that you should not have a birth certificate showing he is your child... But what they are telling you is to research and understand the rammifications to your child (not to you) of changing things that are not legally required to be changed. You say in your last post 'its just an id'...yes, technically it is just an id...but it is not your id, it is your child's id and although you can speak for your child now, you cannot speak for your child when they reach the age of 18 and then it is too late. Brandy has told you that she is not allowed to travel outside of the USA because they changed parts of her birth certificate that did not have to be changed. Now they want to do a dna test with her parents who are not genetically related to her - to prove she is their child...she is literally a prisoner in her own country because someone else decided to change something that was not legally required to be changed at the time of her adoption. As to what 'just an id' means to the adoptee...it is so far from being 'just an id' that I cannot even find the words to start with. Please if you will not take the word of an adult adoptee (same as what your child will become) then ask adoptive parents their views. Kind regards,Dickons
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Sorry. Don't mean to sound argumentative/dismissive. I'm not! And I'm leaning toward leaving it on there. I guess I'm just afraid of having something worse happen b/c I left it on there. If I knew what the odds were, I'd have my answer. Obviously, I want everything to be as easy for him in life as it can be. If he were my bio child, I'd feel the same way. I definitely do not take these things lightly and that's why I posted. B/c all I see is the immediate fear of birth family members who may not have his best interests at heart.You all have brought up an important point about identity and what it means, and I'm considering that, too.Is there anything else I'm missing?
We are also changing the name of our daughter. In another discussion about this exact topic, it came up that someone did not have any piece of paper with the birth parents names, the child's original name, the adoptive parent's names and the new name of the child. Because of that discussion, I am asking our attorney to draw up a legal paper with all that info on it. I know for the poster this lack of info has caused many problems, so I'm trying to alleviate any future potential problems with the name change and the adoption. Who would have thought that an adoption and changing a BC could create so many crazy problems.
What advantage do you see in removing the "local community hospital" name from his birth certificate? I mean, the one thing you listed in your post was a concern about people finding him. But how do you think having the name of the hospital on his newly issued birth certificate would help someone do that?
I'm not aware of any way to search through a list of people who were born at a particular hospital - at least not a way that relies on current info on birth certificates. Sometimes a hospital will have records on line, but the hospital will only list what they know - and since they won't be notified of the adoption or the new birth certificate, they won't list his new info even if they list the old.
And on geneology sites, I don't know any that have that ability either. You can add the city of birth to a search to narrow things down, but not hospital, at least that I've ever seen. (And any geneology site with ethics doesn't let you view info for people who are living.)
And I can't think of any other way someone might search that has to do with the name of the hospital. So I'm wondering if there's maybe no advantage to removing it. Unless there's a way of searching birth certificates by that name that you're aware of?
I know that in our state, you can elect to have the birth certificate changed, in showing the name of the birth parents, and it shows them crossed out, and prints the names of the adoptive parents, and shows "changed by court action on (whatever date)"I guess that does have its reasons for being a good idea.
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Sdirector
I know that in our state, you can elect to have the birth certificate changed, in showing the name of the birth parents, and it shows them crossed out, and prints the names of the adoptive parents, and shows "changed by court action on (whatever date)"
I guess that does have its reasons for being a good idea.
I am currently in the process of becoming a foster parent and I was adopted at 11 months old. Please do not do this to your child!!! When I turned 18, I requested a copy of my original birth certificate. It was so important for me to know these things. It really did help me to find out where I came from. Do not take your child's history away.