You’ve been dreaming of bringing your child home for months, but those early days and weeks together are often very challenging. Your friends and family keep asking you how things are going. Somehow, admitting that your child hasn’t transitioned seamlessly into your family can feel like defeat. It is very common for families to be asking themselves “Did we just make the biggest mistake of our lives?” Here are some ways to prepare for and cope with early problems. These are all things which you hopefully learned during your required adoption education, but it can be difficult to remember when you’re in the thick of it.

*Expect your child to have more medical issues than their file indicated. Children often have minor medical diagnoses that aren’t reported, extreme dental decay, or issues which are incidental to their special need such as difficulty eating for a child with an open cleft palate. Make sure you have educated yourself about your child’s special need, are in contact with other parents who have adopted a child with the same special need for support, and have a way to contact a medical professional while you are in China in case you need a consult.

*Be prepared for your child to be immature for his age. A general rule would be to expect your child to act half of their legal age. Expect your 3 year old to act like an 18 month old or an 8 year old like a 4 year old. If you have biological children, avoid comparing your new child’s development to your children at the same age. Let him develop in his own time, and only compare him to himself. My 5 year old is so behind verbally, but when I look at his progress over the past three years I can see that he has consistently made slow and steady progress.

*Before you travel, refresh your memory on typical orphanage behaviors and the common reactions children have to being handed over to new parents without warning. I suggest the following resources:

• International Adoption: Meeting your child
• Post-orphanage behavior in internationally adopted children
• A little advice from the front lines for adoptive parents to be
• Realistic Expectations: Post adoption struggles
• I was yours and you were mine–the day we met

*Have a plan for aggressive behaviors towards yourself or other children in your home. I think the biggest thing for people who bring home a new child with other children in the home is that we are hardwired to be very protective of the other children. If your new child pushes your toddler down the stairs, Mama bears says “That kid needs to be gone NOW!” Have a plan in mind for mild to moderate aggression, like biting, kicking, or shoving, towards your other children. Be prepared for an extended time period of jealousy or conflict between your newly adopted child and another child in your home, especially if they are close in age. They might be thick as thieves, but be prepared for the worst case scenario.

Even if your child is not physically aggressive, they can still have very challenging behavior. Defiance and testing boundaries are completely normal. This behavior can be because your child is trying to exert control at a time when she has no control over her life or an attempt to push you away. A child who has lost all of his previously caregivers will not have any idea you will be permanent. Unconsciously, he feels it’s better to chase you away to get the inevitable abandonment over sooner rather than later when he feels attached to you.

• Understanding difficult behavior: For foster and adoptive parents
• How to create a safety plan
• Parenting With Connection facebook group

*Finally, what wears people down is an extended period of high stress.

• Have a support system in place. Now is the time to lean on others who offer to help with food, cleaning, transporting children to activities, or whatever makes life easier.
• Do not hesitate to avoid seeing or talking to people who are causing you stress. This is a time when emotions are running high all around. You can smooth over family relationships once things are more settled at home.
• Your social worker is one of your best resources. Don’t wait too long to call her up to ask for suggestions.
• Don’t neglect yourself during this time where you are focused on your new child, her behaviors or medical issues.
• Stay on top of self care. Don’t say “We have to cocoon” when you really need to get out of the house or lose your sanity.
• Keep an eye out for depression and address it as soon as possible.
• Marital conflict is common, too. Don’t be afraid to have a few counseling sessions.

If you are in country or newly home, please try not to panic about these things. You are not alone. These are normal and expected, but that does not make it easy. Get some help, make a plan, and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Things will look very different six months from now and even more different a year from now.

Following up on the post placement reports post, this post is an overview of all of the documents you will receive after the adoption and how to obtain important US documents. This post was co-written with my friend Judy, who wrote up the original version available in the China Adoption Questions group. This and more information is included in the Mine in China book.

In China
In province, you will receive the:

• Chinese Birth Certificate (white folder, in Chinese, with translation)
• Abandonment Decree (white folder, in Chinese, with translation)
• Adoption Decree (pretty red folder, in Chinese and English)

You will often receive multiple copies of the birth certificate and abandonment decree. They are sometimes marked with an A and B on the front to make it easier for you to know which is which since the white folders are identical on the outside.

You will also receive your child’s Chinese passport in their Chinese name, usually on your last day in province, although sometimes it will be forwarded to you in Guangzhou. After the medical in Guangzhou, a US immigration entry visa will be added to the Chinese passport. Consider the Chinese passport a single use passport only. It can not be used again once the child has passed through immigration onto US soil. However, keep the passport in a safe place when you get home, more on that later.

On your way home, before you get on the plane, you will receive a sealed brown folder. Do not lose it, do not open it. Put it in your carry on and hand it to the immigration officer at your port of entry. It contains copies of all the USCIS paperwork and copies of the birth certificate, abandonment decree and adoption decree. You can receive these documents back at a later date if you file form G-884, Request For Return of Original Documents.

You will also receive a Hague Adoption Certificate. This certifies that your adoption has been completed in accordance with the Hague convention governing adoption.

Social Security Card
After you return home, you MAY receive a social security card with your child’s Chinese name on it in the mail about 2 weeks after arriving home. Do not be alarmed if you do not receive one, even if you checked the magic box on your paperwork. The arrival of the social security card is entirely dependent on factors outside of any rational understanding and the mystery, like adoption gremlins, is something best accepted as part of the wonders of adoption.

If you receive a social security card (with the Chinese name on it) in the mail, feel blessed and use it in good faith. This is your child’s social security number and will never change. You will sit tight until the Certificate of Citizenship (CoC) arrives. If you DON’T receive a social security card in the mail in a couple of weeks, again, do not be alarmed. You can sit tight and wait for the Certificate of Citizenship to arrive or if you need a social security number right away, you can go to your local Social Security office to get a card in the Chinese name. It’s your choice, based on your medical insurance and tax needs.

If you go to the Social Security office before the Certificate of Citizenship arrives, take with you the Chinese birth certificate, adoption decree, child’s Chinese passport, and your ID. The Chinese passport can serve as a second proof of the child’s birthdate and theoretically the IR-4/IH-4 visa will serve as proof of citizenship. If you do this, you will need to make a second trip after the Certificate of Citizenship arrives to change the name and register your child as an American citizen if they don’t accept the IR-3/IH-3 visa.

If you choose to wait for the Certificate of Citizenship to go to the Social Security office for a social security card in your child’s new legal name, you will need to take the following:
 Chinese birth certificate, adoption decree, Certificate of Citizenship, and your ID. You don’t need to take your child, although some offices will tell you otherwise. You also only need one parent to go. It is not uncommon for the person at the Social Security office to have no idea what they are doing. Print off the criteria from the Social Security website to show the person if they object to your documents. Ask to speak with a manager if you continue to have problems.

Certificate of Citizenship (CoC)
Your Certificate of Citizenship will arrive 6 – 12 weeks after you arrive home. Keep it on your radar – they can get lost in the mail, and I understand now someone needs to sign for it, so keep an eye out for missed delivery slips.

According to USCIS, if it has been 50 days since you entered the US with your child but your Certificate of Citizenship has not arrived, you can use the following contact information to check on the status:

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Buffalo District Office (NER, D02)
306 Delaware Avenue
Buffalo, NY  14202

or Child-Citizenship-Act@uscis.dhs.gov

You may also call 1-800-375-5283. You have to provide them with your reference number (listed on the child’s passport) and other simple identifying info. However, they will probably simply say that they are behind on processing so you should continue to wait. If you need the Certificate of Citizenship sooner, don’t hesitate to get your Congressperson or Senator involved. That’s their job, to help constituents navigate government officialdom.

If you have lost your child’s Certificate of Citizenship, form N-565 and $555 will get you a new copy.

Note: When I did an image search for Certificate of Citizenship there were many images of actual CoCs from adoptive parent blogs including birthdates and addresses clearly visible. I know this sounds obvious, but do not post photos of your child’s legal documents online without covering personal information.

US Birth Certificate and/or Delayed Registration of Foreign Birth and/or Re-Adoption
Once you get the Certificate of Citizenship, you will need to get a US birth certificate or equivalent (which in most states is called a Delayed Registration of Foreign Birth or Foreign Birth Registration). Whatever it is called in your state, you will want to get this. In case of loss or damage, it’s a lot easier and faster to replace the US birth certificate than it is to replace the Chinese birth certificate. Also, you’ll get less hassle when you go to register your child for school or he/she applies for a driver’s license or college or job or any other circumstance where a birth certificate is required. Just trust me on this. Every state has different rules about getting the US birth certificate, some states it’s as easy as submitting a form, some document copies, and a check for $25 to juvenile court, and some states require you to re-adopt. You will need to look up your state’s rules, or check with your homestudy social worker for more details. Childwelfare.gov has a listing of state statutes, but it is from 2014 so it might be outdated.

US Passport
At some point, you will want to get a US passport for your child. This serves as an important additional proof of citizenship. Passports are more portable than the Certificate of Citizenship and far cheaper to replace. Information on obtaining a passport is found on this State Department page on the US Child Citizenship Act of 2000. Note that you will have to send original documents when you file for a passport. This includes your child’s Chinese birth certificate and Certificate of Citizenship. If you need the passport before you receive your child’s Certificate of Citizenship you can send your child’s Chinese passport because the the IR-4/IH-4 visa serves as proof of citizenship. The documents you send will be mailed back separately from the passport. You will typically receive them 1 to 7 days after the passport, so don’t panic when only the passport shows up in your mailbox. 

For passport renewals, you no longer need to send the Chinese birth certificate and Certificate of Citizenship. I was able to renew my adoptee’s passport in 2022 with a state issued birth certificate and state issued adoption document so you can now use these if you have completed the process for these in your state. 

Nullifying the Chinese Passport

Upon your child’s first application for a tourist visa for a visit back to China, you will need to send both your child’s US passport AND your child’s Chinese passport. You will receive both back. When the embassy affixes the Chinese tourist visa to your child’s US passport, they will also stamp and puncture the Chinese passport to nullify it. Don’t worry if you misplace the Chinese passport. You can still get your child a visa to go back to China, but it may take longer and you might have to provide more documentation.

DO NOT, under any circumstances, leave the US on the child’s Chinese passport once they have entered through US immigration. Your child will not be allowed back into the US without a lot of hoop jumping and questions. If anything involving the police or hospitals or other officials were to happen during your travel abroad, the situation for your child would be handled according to the treaties and laws applying to Chinese citizens. The US embassy would not be contacted, and would not be able to intervene on your child’s behalf, even if they were contacted. If you know that you will be traveling abroad, it is imperative that you obtain a US passport for your child.

You might think that once you’re home, the paperwork is over. Sadly, that is not the case although it will not reach dossier levels of paperwork. Besides obtaining vital documents for your child such as a Social Security card, US passport, and state issued birth certificate, you also have an obligation to send post placement reports to China at required times for the next few years. MLJ Adoptions has a good post giving a general explanation of post placement reports, but this post will address reports for China specifically.

It is important to complete the post placement reports for a few different reasons. Firstly, you agreed to do so when you adopted from China. Secondly, it reflects on your agency and on other adoptive parents. You might have seen agencies advertise that they are ranked #1 or #2 by China. One of the criteria China uses to rank agencies the percentage of the agency’s families which submit post placement reports. Finally, China will not approve you to adopt again if you are missing any post placement reports.

If a large number of families do not submit reports, it could even affect the future of the China program. The State Department found that not submitting post placement reports was a factor in the programs of Kazakhstan and Guatemala, both of which are closed to Americans. Many feel that the changes China made in the post placement report schedule two years ago were a direct result of the Reuters “re-homing” investigation. China wants to know that the children they place with American families are being well cared for.

Because agencies want families to submit the post placement reports, many now require that families pay the costs upfront. Requiring a deposit which will be returned after all of the reports have been submitted is also common. Some still have the option of paying as you go, although this makes it tempting to skip in order to save money. Often a homestudy agency will charge $300-$500. You might have to pay mileage for the social worker, too. If your homestudy agency has closed or you have moved, you still have the responsibility to find a new agency to conduct and write up the post placement visit. If your placing agency has shut down, you should find a new placing agency to submit the report for you.

There are two different timelines for the required post placement reports. If your travel approval was issued before January 1, 2015, your schedule is:

• 1 month
• 6 month
• 1 year
• 2 years*
• 3 years*
• 5 years*

If your travel approval was issued after January 1, 2015, your schedule is:

• 6 month
• 1 year
• 2 years
• 3 years*
• 4 years*
• 5 years*

Although the 1 month report is no longer required by China, many agencies require it so they can check in on families sooner to find problems early. Report times marked by an asterisk are ones which the parents may self-report, so no meeting with a social worker is required. If you have adopted both before and after January 1, 2015, you will be using both schedules so you have to keep track of which child is on which schedule. Post placement reports typically include an update on the child’s health and development, current photos, and if the child is over the age of ten, an essay written by the child. It is best to contact your placing agency directly for their requirements. They should be able to provide you with a template.

As of April 1, 2021 parents will be required to submit five photos/video directly to the CCCWA annually until their child turns 18. A written report is optional.

I hope this post has cleared up any confusion. Post placement reports are an important part of the adoption process even though your child is home.