My Daughter's REAL Birthdate Matters

Today is The Ladybug’s birthday but it is not the birth date listed on her Chinese birth certificate. Because the date listed on her birth certificate is wrong; a date incorrectly estimated and assigned to her by an orphanage director. We know this to be true based on first-hand accounts by the foster parents who took custody of her within hours of her birth.

The dates are “only” off by about a month so it’s not as if they affect anything in terms of significant age, developmental assessments or school placement or anything else like that.  It’s just that the birth date is not hers.

And for a kid who’s already lost so much of her birth story that month really matters.

But let me tell you getting this mistake corrected isn’t as simple as it should be. 

We have actually had to hire an immigration/adoption attorney to prepare a formal motion with the court; in doing so we have had to gather documentation from China, her foster parents and our physician. But that’s not the worst part, our attorney has actually advised us NOT to proceed with our request because it could cause inconsistencies in The bug's “official records” that flag immigration and Homeland Security.  She could have problems when obtaining a passport and when traveling in and out of the US.

So basically a consistent error is preferred over a onetime correction?

Are you kidding me? 

According to the "experts" my daughter should just suck it up and keep a false birth date because it’s an administrative hassle and apparently represents too much complexity for our government to get right?  If that’s the best we can do then we seriously have no hope of keeping terrorists out of our country.  Because if THIS is too complicated, a five year old with a typo on her forms, we’re sunk. 

And this does bring to light one point (there are many) of absolute agreement I have with adult adoptees; 

Adoptees should have full unrestricted access to their original birth certificates, medical history and birth information and, should be able to correct erroneous information without administrative burden.

My daughter’s birth date is the one thing from her birth story that she still “owns” and no amount of USCIS/TSA/Homeland Security bureaucratic stupidity is going to take it away from her!

TODAY is her birthday. 

Not July 25^th. TODAY.

And it matters that we get it right.

Happy 5th birthday my love.

We go to court in October.  Wish us luck,