Birth and Marriage Certificates

This week involved a visit to the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages to get copies of our birth and marriage certificates, which are required with our expression of interest to adopt. Our birth certificates are packed away in a storage shed at the Sunshine Coast, so we figured it would be easier to just get new copies. They were $25 each. We also had to get a copy of our marriage certificate, which was also $25.

When you get married, you sign two certificates. One is a nice, fancy one that you get to keep. The other is the 'official' one that you don't get to keep. If you ever need a copy of your marriage certificate, you're not able to use the nice one - you have to pay to get the official one. On Wednesdays and Thursdays I work in the city in the government precinct, so the Registry is almost across the road from my building, so that made it easy.

We've filled in a draft copy of our expression of interest and have let it rest a few days to see if when we reread it there is anything to change because it’s unclear. My mum had a read this week and crossed a few things out (I can waffle, have you noticed?) and added a few things in as suggestions. We'll complete the copy to submit this weekend so everything will be good to go. Just need to get a JP to sign everything. Again, hurrah for connections! Renai who I work with is a JP, so that's handy.

If everything goes according to plan we'll be putting our expression of interest in this Thursday, 17th August 2006. I'm planning on submitting it in person because of the convenience of the Dept of Child Safety also being in the govt precinct, and therefore just a stone's throw from work.