When you adopt a child, you become his legal parents.
Adopting a child is an option for some couples to add to their families for a variety of reasons, including infertility and a desire to help. When a couple chooses to adopt, whether they choose a local or international adoption, the child legally becomes their own and they are named the child's parents. Therefore, the child's birth certificate is changed to reflect this change in parentage.
Court Order
All adoptions must be approved through the court where you live. Once a judge signs off on the adoption, making you the legal parents of the child, you receive a court order stating that you are the child's parents. In some states, this court order is submitted to the vital records office by the court, resulting in a change on the birth certificate. Other states may require the adopting parents to submit the paperwork. For a child who was born out of state, the change must be made in the child's birth state because birth records do not move from one state to another.
Birth Certificate Changes
Once the state's department of vital records receives the court order and other paperwork indicating that the child has been adopted, the birth certificate is automatically changed. If the child's name changed as a result of the adoption, the name is changed on the birth certificate. The parents names are also changed, removing the birth parents' names from the record. When you request a new copy of the birth certificate, it will contain only the child's current name and the adoptive parents' names, along with other information, such as location and date of birth.
Birth Parents
When the birth parents' names are removed, you may wonder what happens to those names. Upon adoption the birth parents' names are taken off the record completely, but they are not removed from the system altogether. Instead, the names of the birth parents and the child's original name are placed in sealed records. These records cannot be accessed without a court order in most states. Some states grant access to these records to the adopted child once she is an adult, as long as the birth parent has not requested that there be no access to the record.
Ordering a Copy
Once a birth certificate is changed with the state, the adoptive parents can request a copy to keep for their records or use whenever a birth certificate is needed, such as when registering for school. At any point after the adoption is final, the birth certificate must be requested using the current information. This means you use the adoptive parents' names and the child's current name to request a copy. You do not need to know the birth parents' names or the child's original name. If you try to use this information, most states will not be able to find the birth certificate.
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