Even though we are home with Sophie we still have some loose ends in the whole adoption process. Things that many people may not know. Since Sophie Lee-Nguyen Belz is her "American" name it is not her legal name. As far as the US Government and other entities are concerned she is still known by he birth name which is confusing to say the least.
Yesterday we received her Certificate of Citizenship and a letter from former President Bush (Both are really cool), so yes, she is a US Citizen and has been since we cleared immigration at LAX on 12/21, but we still have to go through the State of Missouri to complete the name change and the Recognition of Adoption papers in the courts. Sophie's adoption was completed in Viet Nam and thus we do not have to re-adopt her in the US. The recognition of adoption is a viable solution which will allow us to obtain her social security card and State of Missouri birth certificate.
Once all of this is complete the "adoption" really is not 100% over. As a family we have a legal obligation to the Vietnamese government, where we will provide yearly progress reports and photos until Sophie turns 18. We do not handle sending these over to Viet Nam, Holt does, which is good. Holt remains with us for the rest of our lives and Sophie's. They provide wonderful post placement services and programs, camps, trips back to Viet Nam, etc. We are so very glad that we did our homework on adoption agencies and that we made the right choice when we chose Holt.
2 comments:
Hey Hank...
We spent the day with your girls and let me tell you that we really enjoyed it...Sophie is just a wonderful little girl and we all love and had a great time with her...and we enjoyed Trish too...Missed you...aunt sue
In Oklahoma you have to wait 6 months to do the re-adoption. We plan on starting that process after our Spring Break vacation. We are very excited about the adoption tax credit! That's going to make a huge difference for us!
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