Stepchild adoption issues

[Estif 0]

I'm a US citizen living in Japan. Just getting getting everything together for I130 for my Mongolian wife (married 31/2 years) and stepchild. I adopted my stepdaughter, my wife's natural child (15), in January 2010, at the Mongolian embassy in Tokyo. (I did the adoption to let the kid know that I loved her.) The Mongolian embassy took the original birth certificate and issued an adoption certificate. We got her a new Mongolian passport with my last name, and then had to send to Mongolia for a new birth certificate. The new birth certificate lists me as her father. The daughter has been living with us for a little over a year.

Now I see in the I-130 instructions:

You may not file for a person in the following categories:

1. An adoptive parent or adopted child, if the adoption took place after the child's 16th birthday, or if the child has not been in the legal custody and living with the parent(s) for at least 2 years prior to the filing of the petition.

Am I in trouble here since the daughter hasn't lived with us in Japan for 2 years, or does my wife's being her natural mother make any difference? As usual when it comes to immigration I'm confused. The daughter wouldn't have been living with us for 2 years in Japan, but her mother would have had legal custody of her all her life. Anyone have any ideas on this?

[Penguin_ie 5,997]

I think (not an expert on this sort of thing) you will need to file for her as a step daughter; ie with an I-130 of her own, to get a IR-2 visa.

[Estif 0]

Thanks, guess all I can do is forge ahead and see what happens.