Names again...

Another adoptive mom (Thanks Natalie!) helped me out with how the naming works with adopting children from Haiti. Here's how I understand it - please anyone correct me if I still have this confused. When we are through the post-IBESR courts, they will legally be our children. They will have our last name, but will retain their current first and last names as their first and middle names.

If they come into the US on an IR-3 visa (which we are anticipating), they will be US citizens when they get off the plane in the US. We wouldn't need to do anything else, but on the advice of our home study worker and many others, we will re-adopt them, so that we can give them the names we've chosen for them. This will also provide them with US birth certificates, and life will be much easier for them if they need to get extra certified copies of their birth certificates later on in life. Jock and I had to get extra copies of each of ours just to go through this process to adopt them, and I can't imagine what that would have been like if we'd had to order them from a third-world country. Who knows how long that would have taken, if it had even been possible!

Anyway, after we re-adopt them, they will have the names Elijah Ralph, and Josephine Celena. We decided we want to keep their first names as their middle names, to have a name that their birth parents gave them. Kaylen got to keep her first name, because she was already used to it and knew how to spell and even write it before we thought about naming her. We have started calling them Elijah and Josephine, although sometimes we will probably use them a bit interchangeably, because we got a little used to using Ralph and Celena before we decided for sure on the names. Like Amy said, we're getting old and forgetful! :)

Another friend of mine asked me if the people at the orphanage would start calling them Elijah & Josephine so they'd get used to their names. It's something I hadn't really thought about before, and a good question. I'll have to find out. Although, I know I've seen pictures of the baby rooms, and they post the children's names on their cribs, so I can imagine it might get pretty confusing for the nannies to have to keep track of so many children and all their names. We do know that being so young, they'll pick up English very quickly when immersed in it, and will probably also start answering to their new names fairly quickly as well.