Having a baby while in the field might conjure up all sorts of mental images, or it might not. If you're considering it though, this is one image that might give you pause.
The epitome of red tape: files to ceiling
Bureaucracy was one of our biggest hurdles (so far) in having a baby in the field. While any child born to United States citizen is by U.S. law granted citizenship at birth irrespective of the location of their birth, one still needs to get a passport, and very likely an exit visa, in order to leave the country. All of this meant, that we had to become very adept at negotiating the mountains of red tape surrounding the Indian government.
Now, while the particulars will almost surely be different in whatever country your field site is, and rapidly change even here in India, the following are the steps we had to go through, and might provide some signposts.
We had hoped Annie would be able to have dual US-Indian citizenship, but unfortunately, no. India does not allow dual citizenship. In fact, it currently has extremely strict citizenship requirements. For example, a baby born to one Indian parent and one non-Indian parent IN India would not be Indian, nor would a baby born to both Indian parents in another country. India does offer various non-dual citizenship options, such as a PIO (Person of Indian Origin), OCI (Overseas Citizen of India), and NRI (Non-resident Indian). I had hoped she would be able to get one of these designations, as she would get a lifetime Indian visa, and, really, just a whole lot of street-cred. But, once again, no. The requirements for all these classifications were so complicated; i.e. what constitutes "origin", that I finally gave up, knowing that the rest of the process was going to be very frustrating on its own.
The first step was the birth certificate. Whereas in the United States this is issued the day the baby is born, or at least before you leave the hospital, this isn't the case in India. The reason: many Indian families follow tradition and don't name the baby for up to six days following birth. We were told getting the birth certificate would take a month. Of course, this contradicts the regulation that you register the child within two weeks...but so it goes.
The above photo was taken at the Delhi Development Authority office, which issues the birth certificates
The rupee stops here
We were concerned a bribe would be either implicitly or explicitly required, but whether the sign above had anything to do with it or not, no bribes were required and I was able to get the birth certificate without a problem.
With birth certificate in hand it was time to get the all-important U.S. passport. For that we needed the all-important passport photo. For a baby, the government requires the baby be looking forward with eyes open. Not an easy task with a newborn. Although we got a passport photo of Annie taking with me holding her, the local photo place was able to photoshop me out of the picture. Of course, this ended up looking a little funny, giving her a flattened head, but so it goes.
Getting Annie's passport photo photoshopped
Look Mom, no hands!
With pictures taken we then had to amass a mountain of documents, including Jo's ultrasounds and other exam reports, which were to prove that we hadn't stolen, adopted or used a surrogate to have the baby.
The giant pile of documents
The day before our appointment at the U.S. embassy they called me to tell me that they had other requirements that were not listed on the website. "Great.....and now what do you need?" "A family photo", they said. Ok......well, if we were going to get a family photo than it was going to be a funny/ironic one.
Our ironic family photo...NO SMILES as per traditional Indian style!
As one might expect, the U.S. side of this whole process was pretty straight forward. We went to the passport office at the appointed time, gave them the appointed documents, paid the fee, and then picked it up a week or two later. That was the easy part. Unfortunately, once we got the passport we then needed to get Annie an "exit visa". Now, she was born in the country, but she still needed a visa to leave the country. Don't ask me why.
For this we had to go to the Foreigners Regional Registration Office, which is where we had to come to once we first came to India to register. The place is unbelievable as it is where everyone needs to come and register who are going to live in the country.
May I help you?
The airplane-hanger waiting area is divided into two halves. One for Afghan refugees and the other for non-Afghan refugees. Can you guess who is sitting where in the above photo?
I won't go to far into details here, but let's just say it was traumatic. So traumatic that I can't retell it here as it involved me having to come back to this office six times, waiting for several hours each time, in order to finally get the requisite exit visa stamp in her passport! Homeward bound we are!
