We planned Eden's birthday party for this weekend today; she turns sixteen tomorrow! She has no interest in driving any time soon, which I am extremely thankful for, but sixteen is still a huge milestone with or without a license.
She's growing up so fast!
We received her new birth certificate in the mail last week, so I'll be running that stuff down to the adoption agency soon and then starting the process of getting her citizenship taken care of as well as changing her name on her military ID, school records, etc.
It was pretty strange to see our names listed as her parents instead of her birth parents, and while I'm really happy that we've got her new birth certificate it also felt really strange and made me a bit uneasy, like we were trying to rewrite history to erase her first parents or something. While I know that the birth certificate is mostly a formality and a sign of our adoption, I still wish they were listed on the form somewhere too.
Anyway, while her adoption is now finalized, children from Thailand enter the country on an IR-4 visa, so her citizenship isn't automatic (a good explanation of this problem can be found here). It will add yet another chunk of paperwork to our giant file on the adoption, but it's really important to make sure we complete it before she turns 18, or she'll have to take the citizenship test. That would stink!
Also we'd like to travel back to Thailand sometime in the next few years to visit, and we need to have her US passport before we do that. So while it's a hassle, I'll fill out the darn paperwork and get the ball rolling.
~Jess
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