Erika Bonham dot com

April 30, 2007

Tomorrow we are heading down to San Diego to get Tegan’s birth certificate. Having a baby outside of a hospital makes for a lot of red tape to obtain a birth certificate. While in the hospital, we were informed that because she wasn’t born there, they couldn’t get her birth certificate for us. We had to take care of it ourselves. It has taken 7 weeks to get all of the paperwork together and await our appointment to get the thing.

So, if you have a baby before you make it to the hospital in California and it wasn’t planned, this is what you need:

1)The baby, which must be brought to the appointment

2)A witness to the birth with their ID (No witness, you have to go to family court to prove it.)

3)The mother’s ID or passport or something

4)Three proofs of residency, 2 before the birth, 1 after the birth (ie: bills or statements with mother’s name and address on them as well as the date issued.)

5)The paramedics report stating what they did and that they cut the cord (the initial report didn’t state that and we had to wait for them to write an addendum to the initial report.)

6)Mother’s hospital record stating what they did there and that the placenta was delivered there.

7)A note from the doctor on official letterhead with doctor’s original signature stating mother was pregnant, due date, last menstural period, verification through ultrasound.

I think that is it. That is more than enough. Quite a headache and enough for me to make every effort to make it to the hospital before the baby is born next time (if there is a next time….)

♥