Yesterday we had Jacob's final court date. Our sweet boy became an American citizen yesterday. His name also officially became Jacob. He is officially ours in all ways. It was a great day.
My folks came up from Rochester for the proceedings. The judge was very nice. Jacob walked in and shook his hand. It was short and sweet. We have a few pictures which I will post this evening. Afterward, we had a very nice brunch at our house and Jacob went down for a nap.
One thing happened of note. We were told before the meeting to review the birth certificate and sign it. If there was an error, we were not to sign it, but use a sticky to indicate the problem. It turns out there was an error. It had Addis listed as Jacob's place of birth. That is not where he was born. When I pointed it out, the court officer said to me, "That is what you filled out." I was surprised, because I know he was not born there, but looked at the documentation she showed me. The question asked where the court proceedings took place for the adoption. I indicated Addis Ababa. It did not ask his birthplace. I explained that to her. She shook her head and said, "You people don't understand that what you write on the forms is where we get our information." I pointed out again, that the question asked about court, and not birth place. She stalked off and came back a moment later. This time, she said they would hyphenate it, so place of birth would read "Addis Ababa- Sidama". JF pointed out that it would be as if we put NYC-Philadelphia on a birth certificate; it doesn't make sense. The funny thing is, at the end of the day, she isn't the one who types out the new one. And the woman who does was very apologetic. Regardless, his new birth certificate will say Sidama.
5 comments:
Congrats!
Oh congratulations, that's really excellent news!
Crazy about the birth certificate.. arggghhhh. lady, you didn't ASK where he was born! That sounds extremely frustrating.
But nevertheless. A proper family, yay!
As an adopted kid, I can understand the court's issue regarding the birth certificate details. Rather than a birth place, which is customary for childen born to birth parents, it is much more important to document where the records of the infant were kept at the time of adoption. That information will most likely lead back to the origianal paperwork needed if the originals are lost. Getting my first passport was a very complicated process until my adoption center (rather than my birth hospital who did not keep the records) was eventually contacted.
Hi Colleen, just saw your comment on Claudia's blog. Your profile indicates you guys are (or were at one point?) Bostonians -I just wanted to say hi since we are also Bostonians. We are waiting on a travel date to bring home our Habesha son hopefully sometime in the next 8 weeks... Congrats to Jacob and becoming a US Citizen!
Big Congrats on Jacob's citizenship! We are on the brink of applying for O.A.'s.
That is weird that the one lady was so indignant - it's like, heeeeellllo, it did not say BIRTH PLACE how is it that hard to understand....
Cindy
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