Monday, December 01, 2008
And I thought we were through with paperwork
So, I need to hear from you veteran adoptive parents. We are looking to get reimbursements back from our state ($4,000) and from the military ($5,000). However, we need to have social security cards for the children, which we don't have. And apparently we need to have paperwork stating that they are U.S. citizens to get social security cards, which we don't have. Just having finished our adoption trip - we are completely strapped for money = we are poor folks here. What is the process for getting social security cards (what paperwork do we need to have) and how do we register the kids with the Ukrainian Embassy? I look forward to hearing from you.
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9 comments:
What a dilemma! Good luck!
The SDA should have given you some papers -- in there it has a checklist on what to do. It will tell you where your regional Ukraine office is to send your notarized court decree that is in Ukrainian (you can keep the translated portion for your own records), their passports and pictures.
NOTHING costs to get that certificate or the SS#.
The certificate should have started it's process when you landed in the US (the packet you gave to the nice officer:) -- we got ours after about 4 weeks home.
I then used that certificate and a translated birth cert. to apply for the SS#, which came in the mail 2 weeks after applying. Hope this helps!
The certificate of citizenship will come in the mail in a couple of weeks. You take that, your court papers and the birth certificates with you to apply for social security cards. We also took the boys passports because they can actually use the passport *if* you happen to live in one of the states that wants to do their own translating (meaning they want the Ukrainian version and they'll translate it themselves which takes months). So, I'd also take the passport just in case (in VA for Xander we didn't need it, in AL for Grifyn we did).
Once you've done that, send the packet of stuff to the Ukrainian Embassy. MAKE COPIES OF EVERTHING before you send it to them. They'll register your kids and send the passports back with a stamp in them that proves the children are registered. Then, you'll send your post placement reports to that same embassy every year.
For the military reimbursment, just keep in mind that it may take a couple of months for you to see the money....they're pretty slow processing it.
I'll give you a call tomorrow morning after I get home from PT with Evan (sorry I haven't called you yet, I got sick before we headed home yesterday and have been out for the count ever since).
You do NOT have to have the COC to get the SSN. You can get them a number as a non-citizen, and then once the COCs come in you can provide them to have the children's status changed to citizen. This is what we did with our son just 11 months ago and it worked perfectly.
Jennifer
Jill, the military reimburesment is only 2k per child for a MAX of 5k a year....so 2 kids= 4k......say you adopted 3 kids that would be the max of 5k.
Just wanted to clarify that so you werent counting on the extra 1k dollars.
HUGS...and everyone has given you the correct info on getting the SS#s
Good luck!
Rita
I would wait until you get the citizenship certificates. It will save you time later. They should be coming very soon. Call you local SS office for info. I can't remember what paperwork we needed. I actually went to the office so I wouldn't have to mail or leave my important documents there. I guard them with my life. Check with your agency they walked us through the registration with Russian Embassy.
We have been back for 7 months now with our daughter. We received the Certificate of Citizenship around a month after we were back. We then took the COC along with all originals our facilitator gave us, (birth certificate with your names as parents, court decree, etc.) along with all the English translations as well as our daughter's Ukrainian passport to get the SS cards. The SS card came in less than two weeks.
As far as any reimbursements, we got one from our state and one from my husband's employer. They want copies of the child's birth certificate, the one with your names as parents, court decree and copies of all expenses including airfare, all payments to your agency or facilitator.
June
adopting2@gmail.com
PS - Sorry, I just saw the last part of your post.
Your children need to be registered with the Ukrainian Embassy within 30 days of coming home. You send the registration paper that the Kiev Embassy gave you, with a photo attached, (you should have extras from passport photos) and their Ukraine passports along with a self addressed stamped envelope (so that the passports can be returned to you once they are stamped) to the Ukraine Embassy address that the Kiev Embassy paper says you are to report to. In our case it was Washington. You can do Priority or Regular mail. Whichever you feel most comfortable. Tracking and confirmation made me feel better about when the passports were received and when they were mailed back.
The Embassy will put a stamp inside your children's passports and put them in the SASE you provided, along with a letter thanking you for registering your children. We had to show that letter to our agency.
You will then send annual updates around the time of their adoption until they turn 18.
June
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