The scarlet "H"

Homebirth is apparently a bit of a scarlet letter. It never really occurred to me that it would be that way, but it kind of has turned out like that. Everyone already knows how we were unable to register Chai with the Army in order for him to be insured, because they wouldn't take Alyson's documents or his social security card as ID for him. Since he's a baby, his ID had to be either a birth certificate, some form that hospitals give people, or a hospital crib card. (Do you know what a hospital crib card is? It's literally a card that says your last name, the baby's gender, its birth date, and maybe its weight. Then they stick it on the baby tupperware that hospital-born babies sleep in. Seriously, they will accept that as ID, but not a homebirth midwife's paperwork, which actually contains more info.)

Anyhow, we had to wait until he was 6 weeks to be able to get his birth certificate because that's how long it takes for it to be ready. That's pretty standard issue. Well by that time, we didn't have the money to pay for it and couldn't afford for Thak to take off work to go on post to register Chai in the system, so we had to wait. Last night, our travel pay from last month's Dallas trip FINALLY came through, so this morning I was able to go get Chai's birth certificate.

Anywhere in the world, the court house is a bit of a pain to go to. El Paso, like the majority of border towns, is a little extra special. Add in the other givens, that parking downtown is always a pain, and you will walk at least a mile to where you're going, and that toddlers like to pitch fits and Orren is better at it than most. Now you see what my morning is like. Finally I found a parking space, put Chai in the Ergo, put Orren on my back, piggyback style, because he wouldn't walk, fought through the hoards of people outside the Mexican Consulate, was nearly run over by a few Juarez cabs (You've got to figure, the courthouse is maybe half a mile from the downtown border crossing.) and FINALLY made it to the courthouse. The line wasn't bad, and we were called up within five minutes. We didn't know there was a paper we had to fill out, so we got kicked back, went and filled out the paper, and got back in line. That's when I saw the sign. "Homebirthers only seen between the hours of 8 and 11 am." Wow. What time is it? 10:30. Phew!

So I got back up to the counter, and on the form, one of the lines asks for birth location. I, of course, put home. They looked at me like I was nutty in the head when they saw that, which I actually did not expect, because I figured they must see quite a lot of homebirthers if they have a sign about it, and designated hours during which they're willing to deal with us. Obviously there are enough of us that this was necessary, right? That's not the feeling I got when I got up to the counter. So basically, they asked for a bunch of info, and asked if I had registered Chai's birth with the county. I said no, that we were attended by a Texas Licensed Midwife, and that she had taken care of our paperwork for us. They were about to just send us away empty handed, but hearing that our midwife had submitted the paperwork, they looked in another computer, and found that indeed, Chai does have a state birth certificate in Austin, but he does not have a county or city birth certificate because Austin has apparently glitched on sending the stuff here for that to happen. The county and the city will not handle homebirth certificates until the stuff comes from the state. This differs somehow from what they do for hospital births.

Anyhow, as they were about to tell me I needed to request Chai's birth certificate to be mailed from Austin (and who knows how long that would take!!) I mentioned that we need a birth certificate for him so we can register him with the Army so he can have health insurance and see the pediatrician. A supervisor was called in, and he told us that we could have a short form birth certificate (it basically just says Chai's name, date of birth, that he's a boy, me and Thak's names, and that he was born in El Paso) but assured me that the Army will accept that. Mission (probably) accomplished! We'll see on Thursday when we try again to register Chai with the Army, if they look at us like we're nutty because our kid's birth certificate is different than the others they generally see.

I seriously am starting to think that when Chai graduates high school, everyone else is going to get a diploma, but they'll give him a piece of scrap paper with, "Chaiyo was here, but he gets this instead of a diploma since he was born at home." written in crayon or something.