I am curious, to all my adoptive readers, do you travel with your child's adoption paperwork?
We are about to travel for 2 weeks and I pulled out all our adoption decrees to take with us. I don't normally carry it around, typically it sits in our fire box for safe keeping.
This is our first vacation where I feel the need to bring it, perhaps because we are going to Canada. Perhaps because I recently heard of a story where an adoptive father was accused of not being his child's parent because the child was a different race.
So it got me to thinking, how many adoptive parents travel with their adoption paperwork?
Right now we do, because we don't have a birth certificate. But once our son has a birth certificate and passport, we probably won't. But I do have digital copies of all important paperwork on my phone (everyone's birth certs, SS cards, insurance cards, etc) just in case!
ReplyDeleteI travel with adoption decree and birth certificates. Two years ago when we were in Spokane, Lexi got sick. When the triage nurse asked about Lexi's health history, I had to say I didn't know a lot because she was adopted. They stopped treatment and tried to get me to prove that she is legally mine. I had to fight up two levels of management because I didn't have the adoption decree with me. I pitched a FIT though. Her insurance card has her name on it. That should be enough. I argued that they never would have even known she was adopted if I hadn't told them so. I also argued that I do not have to show them adoption paperwork. Eventually they gave in, but I filed a complaint with the hospital. I also gave them a big piece of my mind about it. While I still don't feel I should ever have to prove that my kids are adopted, I also don't want to get stuck in that kind of situation again. I bring my adoption decree just in case. Since you're traveling out of the country, and because you have a mixed race family, you definitely should bring your paperwork.
ReplyDeleteMine are all old enough for military ID cards now so we carry those.
ReplyDelete