Well, today was a more productive day than yesterday.
First off, we went to see Sabine, our paediatrician, in the morning. There, we discovered that Eloïse has regained her birth weight, which is great news. It means she’s feeding well and getting the nutrients she needs. Her head even shows marginal growth.
After our paediatric visit, it was time to take on the hordes of civil servants again.
When we got home, there was a message from Rosanna, our midwife, on the answerphone. I played it back and listened to her recount the tale of a phone conversation she had had that very morning with the Mountain View social security office.
Apparently, after 45 minutes on the phone with them, she had finally got them to agree that a birth certificate and a midwife’s signed affidavit are sufficient forms of identification to obtain a social security number for a newborn.
Yesterday, I had been sent away empty-handed, because they didn’t consider Rosanna’s affidavit an official document. Today, thanks to Rosanna, I came away with a receipt for Eloïse’s social security number application, which should arrive in the next couple of weeks. With that, we can apply for an American passport for her. Of course, I did have to spend another two hours queuing in a singularly boring waiting room, but at least it was for the last time. Incidentally, this time, I was told that a birth certificate and an affidavit are sufficient, as long as the application is being filed within 30 days of the child’s date of birth.
From there, I headed down to the Office of the Clerk Recorder in San Jose to obtain certification of the preprinted signature of the health officer whose name is at the bottom of Eloïse’s birth certificate.
I still find this step rather puzzling. Firstly, a birth certificate is already a certification in itself. The signature at the bottom makes it a certified copy, so we’re already talking about a certified certificate. Then, the Clerk Recorder has to add her own certification to the certificate, because the signing health officer is not recognised by the California Secretary of State.
Anyway, $13 lighter, I emerged from the building, now carrying a certified certified certificate. I just love the text on this thing. Here’s an extract:
I further cerrtify that I am well acquainted with the handwriting of said official and believe that the signature to said annexed instrument is genuine.
It’s bad enough that the person whose name is on the original certificate is not recognised by government officials in the same state as that person, but when you read the above passage and then realise that the original signature is not even a real signature, but a preprinted one, you have to wonder if this whole process isn’t some bureaucrat’s idea of a practical joke.
Anyway, I now finally had a birth certificate that the Secretary of State would be happy with, so I sped up Highway 101 from San Jose to Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco, where I laid down $26 to have an apostille attached to the birth certificate. That step was easy, at least.
This particular copy of Eloïse’s birth certificate now boasts four pages. This should enable us to obtain a Dutch passport for her. I’ll call the Dutch Consulate in the morning to make an appointment to file the application. We’ll also need to go and have some passport photographs taken of her.
This is by far the trickiest document to obtain. Not only do we need a copy of her birth certificate complete with an apostille, but we also need a copy of our marriage certificate, also adorned with an apostille. In that case, we had to obtain the document from the Secretary of State in Maine.
Finally, we need my Dutch passport, plus a copy of Sarah’s birth certificate. That, too, must carry an apostille, which, in this case, had to be obtained from the Secretary of State in Rhode Island.
And, just to make everything as hard as it can be, all original documents (including the apostilles attached to them) must be no older than one year. So, if you don’t quickly use your documents to obtain the papers you need them for, they start to expire and you quickly find yourself back at square one, having to request all of this crap all over again.
Anyway, like I said, we’ll be taking Eloïse out to get passport photographs tomorrow. Then, I’ll be making an appointment with the Dutch Consulate to apply for a passport in her name. The application for an American passport has to wait until we receive her social security number in the post.
Today has been strangely satisfying, as we’ve made significant inroads in the bureaucracy through which we have to wade.