When you adopt a child, there's an unbelievable mountain of paperwork that has to be completed. I remember being overwhelmed by it all with our first adoption, and even more so with the second, because I was sleep deprived and distracted by parenting Noah while trying to adopt Sarah.
Even after the adoption is finalized, there are still forms to fill out and hoops to jump through, including obtaining a social security card in the child's new name. I clearly remember the day I hauled 2-year-old Noah and baby Sarah to the social security office in Pekin to get Sarah's card. It stands out as the day that my usually well-behaved Noah was a horrible brat. He was wild and climbing all over the place, not listening, screaming and crying, refusing to be placated with snacks, toys, or books. He had never behaved that way before or since. I remember propping Sarah up on a chair with my foot while I was trying to deal with Noah and fill out paperwork. So...mistakes may have been made. Her social security card arrived with her Korean name on it. I was too busy to do anything about it, so I just filed it away and got on with raising kids.
Fast forward 17 years, and Sarah is trying to get a job, and nobody will accept her social security card with a different name on it. I have spent HOURS in the last few days trying to figure out how to get this corrected. Normally, I would just take my 2-foot-tall pile of adoption documentation to the social security office, but they closed for the pandemic and still haven't reopened. I wasted lots of time wading through the website and filling out online forms. They wanted me to send in original documents through the mail, and I wanted to make sure I sent only the necessary ones. I called the local office, but their number is disconnected, so I had to call the national number, where I spoke with a very unhelpful person who couldn't or wouldn't (but certainly didn't) answer my questions.
I have most of the documents in binders on the bookshelf, but some of the most important and/or odd-sized ones are in a lockbox downstairs, so I went to the basement to dig through it. I was looking for a naturalization document or something that shows the legal name change. I started praying and took everything out of the lockbox, and at the very bottom of it was....a social security card in Sarah's American name. I stared at it in disbelief. I have no idea how it got there. I had a little praise party right there in the basement.
