Haze's CRBA Appointment Comes...and Goes

When we initially learned of our pregnancy back in September, we looked up all of the steps we’d have to take to have the baby’s birth registered abroad and to bring her back to the US with us in the summer. As I’ve posted before, all of the paperwork and timing involved seemed quite daunting and we began to prepare early.

According the Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) webpage, all appointments must be made three months in advance and passports should be applied for at the same time, a second process which would take about 3 to 5 weeks to complete. Due to these constraints we made an appointment for May 20, 2010, giving us three days after what we were told was the last day the baby would be allowed to remain in gestation before being induced and a month before we hoped to leave Viet Nam, arguably a tight stretch on either end, but the best we could do given our constraints.


When Hazel’s due date of May 10th came and went, I began to get a little anxious, not so much for Hazel, who, by now I had read, was comfortably in a large percentage of first babies who go back their initial due dates, but more for the impending CRBA appointment, without which, we would not only be without a CRBA, but also without a passport with which to take her home in the summer. Steven suggested seeing if we could move the date back a bit, but when I checked, the earliest available appointment wasn’t until July. I decided to try to put it at the back of my mind and worry about it when it got closer, because, for all we knew, Hazel could come any day.

When May 17th came, the date on which we had originally been told we could not go beyond, but which date had now been moved until 42 weeks rather than 41 weeks, I started to get really nervous. I decided to go to the consulate and see what our options were if Hazel continued to hold out past the appointment date just three days away.

Once at the consulate, I explained, what I saw as our dire situation, to the Consular officer, who listened patiently and then reassured me that if the baby wasn’t here by the 20th, she would be able to fit us in at another date and then presented me with information that practically had me floating all the way home – instead of waiting 3 to 5 weeks from our appointment date, we could apply for a temporary passport that could be issued within one or two days from the Consulate in Saigon and would just have to trade it in before it expired for an official version. I was thrilled. I repeated everything to make sure I had heard correctly and when she clarified everything she had said, I thanked her profusely and rushed out the door to pick up my phone at the front desk to call Steven. We were going home!!