Thursday, July 2, 2015

Adoption Paperwork and Travel

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?

3 comments:

  1. 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!

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  2. I 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.

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  3. Mine are all old enough for military ID cards now so we carry those.

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