It's a girls life: Recognition of Foreign adoption

When you adopt a child from China the adoption is complete and final before you leave China with your child, as long as both parents are traveling. During the process of adoption there is mountains of legal paperwork that has to be done both here in the USA and in China. Parents wanting to adopt children go through the wringer. We have to complete truck loads of paperwork, pass background screenings, medical exams, financial probing,pass numerous home study visits, take parenting classes, submit to finger printing multiple times, have references and testaments from employers and affidavits of health insurance coverage,

and on and on and on...

all worth it to be blessed with children to call your own.

one last hurdle to cross is to complete what here in Florida is call a recognition of foreign birth.

Yes more paperwork and a court hearing in front of a US judge so that our child's adoption will be recognized in our state by vital statistic and receive a Florida Birth Certificate.

This step is not mandatory and can be skipped if the family so chooses to, however it makes things a lot easier for yourself and later for your child if you have this Florida Birth Certificate. Having to pull out the Chinese Birth Certificate and explain every time to every person that looks at it what it is they are looking at and why it is that this American Child has a Chinese Birth Certificate is, well a pain in the "ars"...

a few weeks ago we had our final court date to complete this step of Amelia's adoption. We are very blessed here in Volusia county to have a wonderful attorney who does this work pro bono. He himself has two daughters adopted from China. He does this work because he knows how important it is to have this step completed for our daughter's sake.

Thank you

George Pappas

you are the best!

The girls were super excited because our super cool Judge Grimes let them come sit in his chair and even bang his gavel.