I have NO Birth Certificate!!!

Since we started the adoption process started we have been throwing everyone for a loop. Every consultant we have talked with has told us we are going to need certified copies of our birth certificates. My response to there requests is that I do NOT have a Birth Certificate!! There response is us usually what, then what do you have and why do you not have a birth certificate?

This is how I have responded to this question my entire life: I was adopted from Bogota, Colombia when I was an infant. I was born in April and my parents travelled during the summer to bring me home. We flew home on August 28th. My mother asked immigration if and when I would get a birth certificate, and they told her all I was going to get was this birth data card and that would be all I ever needed. Ha...what did they know. My birth data card has my name, date of birth, where I was born, and sex.

Two weeks ago, my home study caseworker asked me to call NY to see if I could find a birth certificate. I was fairly certain that one was not going to turn up, but I did as she requested. I call all over NY state. Long story short, I was finally connected to the international adoption vital records department. They explained to me was that in the 70's the US was not issuing or keeping track of international adoption births. It was not until the 80's that that there was a requirement to keep track and issue birth certificates if the child was readopted in US.

So I will never have a birth certificate....How weird and how normal for me.

Disaster!!!

The morning started really early with the pounding rain and the howling of the wind outside. I didn't realize how much damage there was until our babysitter was an hour late because of traffic due to the down trees blocking the streets. Luckily Rudy and I were planning on going out to breakfast before we met with our caseworker for our home study. While we were waiting for our babysitter to show up I decided to call the preschool I wanted to register Lawson for. They had in house registration on Monday and I was planning on standing on line at 4:30 am to get him registered on Wednesday. Well they filled up in house and told me if I wanted to get on a waiting list I could sign up at 6:00 am tomorrow, but there is already an in house waiting list. In other words, I was not going to get him into the preschool I wanted.

I was panicked. The morning was a disaster!!! The babysitter was an hour late, Rudy and I could not go to breakfast together, I couldn't get Lawson into the preschool I wanted, and now we were suppose to go meet our caseworker. I was convinced it was going to be a disaster too. But to our surprise our caseworker for our home study was really nice. We had our orientation meeting at her house which lasted approximately an hour. We went over the policies and procedures, documents we need to collect, the number to times we need to meet with her, etc.

We will meet with her again individually after we are done with our personal profiles. The personal profiles is 16 pages of questions all about you. Some are easy such as where did you go to high school, other are more thought provoking such as, how did your parents teach you to be self-reliant. After we both meet with her individually and she has all our paperwork she will visit our home. So everything went really well, it was not the disaster I thought it was going to be. I am starting to feel more relaxed about the home study.