The US Side...

When your foreign adopted child comes home on a IR3 Visa (Don't worry there won't be a quiz on this later.....) It basically means they are a US Citizen when your plane touches down on US soil. Now, you may think after killing at least a forest of trees with adoption paperwork, you are finally done! Wrong!
Even if you child is a US Citizen there are still some remaining hoops.

• Preparing 4 Post-Adoption Reports (PARs) over the next 3 years
  
• Filing for the Adoption Tax Credit
  
• Securing Your Child's Certificate of U.S. Citizenship
  
• Applying for a Social Security Card
  
• Applying for a U.S. Passport
  
• Applying paperwork to USCIS to for the return of your original Visa packet (you know the one they warned you if you opened your eyeballs would burn out of your head, your fingers would be chopped off if you opened?)
• RE-ADOPTION!

Now after years of paperwork, I'll be the first to admit, those things on the list are the last thing on your mind. PARs and Social Security Cards are a necessity, unless there is problem their citizenship documents come automatically, but the rest.....ahhhh....things you can't bring yourself to do when you feel like if you have to have one more thing notarized YOU.WILL.JUST.DIE.

So, I waited a year. But now it's time to get crackalackin'

Tax credit- done. Just waiting to see if we get a check or an audit letter.....

Passport- Pictures done, forms filled out, documents gathered, appointment in a few hours. It's scary because you have to send the ORIGINAL documents in the mail. You know the ones that if you loose you have to go to Russia to replace? Gulp.

The return of the original Visa packet from USCIS custody- signed, notarized, mailed. And we all know about my relationship with USCIS. No? You can read about it HERE or HERE or HERE or HERE. I could go on....but needless to say if something will go wrong with this fairly straightforward request it will. I am still convinced I am on some kinda wanted poster in their office. Time for returning the original packet? 2 months TO TWO YEARS. Really USCIS? Can't you do a little better than that? So most likely in 2014 we should be getting Charlie's documents back. :)

Re-Adoption- There just isn't a lot of good information out there on this topic. It's kinda vague and cloudy. I've googled it, researched it, and I don't know what else to say other than I should do it. I could hire an attorney to do it (for several thousand dollars) or in our State, do it myself for like $200. I feel I can do it myself. So I put my law firm cap back on and got to work. Drafting a Petition, Summons, Verification, Cover Sheets, marking exhibits. Praying I don't screw up a court proceeding because I am cheap broke. This is the clear reason why I should do it:

1.  We will have a US Birth Certificate in English. (No translations, no funny looks when you shell out pages of Russian documents that CANNOT be replaced to do something as enroll your kid in little league.) With this comes ease in applying to college, college scholarships, marriage licenses, if he ever wants to adopt children of his own, etc.
2. If When we loose a birth certificate we can pay $5 to our local vital statistics office instead of $5000 for a return trip to Moscow.

Now the hazy facts:

1.  There have been tales of orphanages being shut down for ethical reasons and as a fall out, those adoptions under their reign, being brought into question. Now, I haven't been able to find any facts about these cases or what happened to those children. But that scares the CRAP out of me. Not saying our orphanage was anything but wonderful, but what if someday it ceases to be wonderful? What if, what if, what if. Peace of mind is worth $200. 
2. Inheritance issues- why wouldn't he be able to inherit the $567 we leave him? I don't know.
3. Ease in duel citizenship/renunciation issues. 

So, we're (I'm) going for it. It's all ready to go and I'm going to have it clocked at the Clerks office on later this morning. Deep breath and pray I'm not screwing something up!