In my last post I detailed the paperwork involved in an average international adoption process. In this post, I will detail what you have to accomplish once your child is home.

Once you get your child home it is easy to feel like the paperwork is done, but alas, it is merely time for round two!

When your child arrives home, the post placement period begins. Depending on your state, agency and the requirements of the country you adopted from, several post placement reports are typically due in the first six to 12 months home. These visits and reports will likely be handled by your homestudy agency.

While many international adoptions are considered final when the child arrives home, most adoptive parents find it necessary to "readopt" or finalize the adoption in their state, so the child can get a new U.S. birth certificate.

When this can occur depends on the individual laws and regulations of the state you live in, but many states have a six-month waiting period. Once the waiting period is up (if there is one) and any necessary post placement visits are completed, the adoption can be finalized or the readoption can take place.

Once the adoptive parents have a finalized adoption decree, they can apply for a new birth certificate for their child, which will have the adoptive parents listed as the child’s parents. In international adoptions, the new birth certificate will come from the state the adoptive parents live in. To find out what is required to obtain a new birth certificate you can search for the vital records office of the appropriate state on Yahoo, Google or any other search engine.

After you have received a new birth certificate for your child you will need to obtain either a U.S. passport or a Certificate of Citizenship to prove your child is a U.S. citizen. While internationally adopted children ARE legal citizens of the United States once all requirements are met thanks to the Child Citizenship Act of 2000, proof is still needed, and this is an important step in the paperwork process.

Getting a social security number for your internationally adopted child can be frustrating and unpredictable, which is due to the fact that each office seems to have their own set of rules. I know people who have been able to go into their Social Security office and show their original adoption paperwork and the child's passport and visa, and received a social security number for their child before the adoption was finalized and before they received proof of citizenship.

While in this situation the child is not listed as a citizen, the social security number stays the same and the citizenship status can be changed later.

Our office (and others) will not give a social security number to a child until proof of citizenship is obtained.

You can find more detailed information on social security numbers here, and I would definitely call your local office and ask how they handle international adoptions.

Once your have finalized your adoption (if needs be), obtained a new birth certificate for your child, obtained a social security number and obtained proof of your child's U.S. citizenship (in whatever order it works out!), you are really, almost done with the paperwork.

The remaining step is your annual reports. Most international adoption programs require families to send annual reports, including pictures, of the child's progress until that child reaches a certain age. While there is no way for agencies to enforce that adoptive parents really complete these reports, these reports are vital to the future of adoptions.

Many international programs have been threatened or even halted when a large number of adoptive parents have failed to comply with the annual reports. These reports are a way for the other countries' government officials to see that the children they are allowing to be placed for international adoption are being loved and cared for and that adoption was a good thing for these children. It also shows that the adoptive parents are committed to the country of their child's birth.

The details and requirements of annual reports can vary, but if they are required for your child's adoption, I ask that you take them seriously and make it a priority to complete them.

I know it sounds like a ton of paperwork (it was overwhelming just writing about it all!) but if you take it one step at a time, it is all very doable (and worth the end result).