The week after I got out of the hospital, Paul was gone to Singapore. The up side was I had access to the car without having to take Paul to work. The down side was I needed to take care of the paperwork for the new baby, as we need his passport before we can return to the States.
We already had some birth papers from the hospital (which Paul filled out in English), but we need the "official" birth certificate... thing... from the ward office. I got up early, got the kids dressed, and everyone packed into the car. Megan and Suzi had stayed up late the night before and only Megan came with me; Suzi slept in.
I got to the office without to much trouble; I did almost turn onto the wrong side of the street (I'm still getting used to driving in Japan, as I only started after the baby was born), but I managed to notice before it was too late to make the change. There are lots of one way streets all around the office and you have to back track a lot if you make a wrong turn. Luckily there's a GPS in the rental car.
Got to the parking lot, got the kids out. Megan took the children to the park across the street and I took Baby Bus with me into the office and went straight to the wrong floor.
I thought I needed to go to the same floor where I got my "Mother's Handbook" but turned out I need to go to counter five on the first floor. Got a number and got called to a desk. I ended up being handed off to someone who had okay English skills. He asked me for my "residence card", which I don't have because I am on a visitor's visa. He then told me that I don't need anything from them, and to simply take all the papers to the US Consulate.
So I go get the kids and we head back home.
A week later, a few days after Paul got home, we head to Osaka to get the paper-work done at the US Consulate. I can't do this alone because both the father and the mother need to be there in person for whatever reason. After 2.5 hours at the consulate's office we find out that we need to get the "official" birth certificate from the ward office after all. They also tell us that the baby needs a "residence card" just like the ones that we have.
But we don't have a residence card. We have never showed anyone a residence card. Why does everyone assume we have a residence card? Are these things so easy to get that every tourist is supposed to pick one up? (No, by the way, they are not (And if I'm having trouble getting a birth certificate for my own baby, I don't want to even know the hoops I'd need to jump through to get a residence card!))
After convincing the consulate of this vital piece of information, they let us give them the rest of the papers and forms, sign on the dotted line, and then mail the "official" form to them later so Paul doesn't have to take another day off of work and we don't have to pay another $300 in train tickets to come back to the consulate.
The US Consulate also gave us an English "translation form", and asked us to get someone to translate the official birth certificate for us. So, apparently, it's going to be all in Japanese? The nice thing is that we get to spend the afternoon at the Osaka Aquarium, which was really nice, except that the whale shark wasn't there for whatever reason.
I head back to the ward office the next day.
They ask for my residence card.
... Must... control... fist... of... death...
I show them my visa that's in my passport, the paper I got from the consulate, and the same paper I gave them the last time I came in. The guy works with me and they give me what I can only assume is the paper that I need to mail to the consulate to get my baby's passport. The frustrating thing is that this is a copy of the paper I gave them with Japanese translations written in the margins. Oh, and it has a fancy stamp on it. I guess this makes it "official".
So, to review: We filled out our own birth certificate in English. The ward office told us we didn't need an official paper. The Consulate insisted that we DO need an official paper. The ward office copied the paper we gave them, added Japanese translations, stamped it, and handed it back. Now we need to "translate" it back to English before the US will (we can only hope) accept it.
United States? Japan?
A plague on both your houses.
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