Attention parents-to-be, we know you are feeling prepared. You’ve made some awesome playlists, you’ve got the tennis balls, the granola bars, the organic juices and straws (seriously, don’t forget the straws). But there is one crucial detail you may have overlooked. Are you ready to fill out the birth certificate? Sure, you think, I’m great with forms, I can check a box like a lesbian gynecologist. But let us paint you a picture. It is four am, you or your spouse have spent the last 10 to 36 hours experiencing waves of abdominal cramps that have a seismic similarity to the 1906 earthquake. Your carefully packed birth bag has yet to be unzipped and you or your spouse is now bouncing on a ball as if not bouncing would launch all nukes in a War Games scenario. Then much crying, screaming, and gore gore gore later, the cutest person in the world enters the room. How ready are you to fill out a form now? When asked “mother’s maiden name” can you guarantee that you won’t put your mother’s name, because maybe you have forgotten that the above mentioned gore has resulted in you (YOU!) becoming a mother? A warrior, a goddess, a freaking champion, yes. But also a mother? (don’t worry, it will never stop feeling surreal)
Now you need to fill in the name of the father (husband, boyfriend, helpful fertile neighbor), but alas the staff says that your man’s name can’t be put in the “father” field because 1. You aren’t married, or 2. You have different last names. You show your wedding rings, you discuss his failure to hire a wedding band in time, you point out matching tattoos, still the staff is not convinced. Or they are, but legally they can’t allow any one to claim paternity without the following: a U.S. marriage certificate (or a certificate from a foreign country if it is in English) or a Paternity Acknowledgement Form. They have the PAF at the hospital for all us out-of-wedlock types. The lovely staff at New York Methodist is very accommodating and will let you send them a copy of your marriage certificate in the following few days. But if you have the baby on the eve of a national holiday or long weekend, the flexibility of any hospital staff decreases.
In addition to your proof of paternity or marriage, you also want to bring your new baby’s name with you. Of course, there are many cultures for whom waiting to name the baby is the norm, and hospitals will do their best to accommodate you. But they legally can only delay the filing of the birth certificate for FIVE days (again Methodist, my source here, will allow for a bit more time, but that is not the case generally). And if they file with no name on the birth certificate, then you have to have it amended (the city says do it through the hospital, the hospital says do it through the city, you can’t see the bottom of this rabbit hole). You must then also apply for the social security card yourself. You don’t want to delay these things since your employers will need a copy of the birth certificate in order to put your little Jelly Bean on your insurance. This also means you DO NOT want to just put down any name, like your in-the-belly name, say Zankou after a particularly good chicken shack in LA. The correction can be hard to make and if your kid has any health issues, all services starting at birth will be under that name, so you’d then have to change the name in other places to ensure that the services continue (why yes Mr. Hatter, I’d love some more tea). So add these few items to ye ol’ birth bag, because in the days following delivery you do not need to be dealing with New York City bureaucracy or having to talk on the phone, or try to complete full sentences. You will basically be in zombie lock down, walking slow, bumping into the furniture and seriously contemplating eating your new baby. Really, she’s so cute you can’t help yourself.
Sarah Moriarty is a writer, editor and adjunct professor teaching composition and literature classes at The College of Staten Island. Sarah’s writing has appeared in such hallowed places as her blog, her mother’s email inbox, the backs of Value Pack envelopes and a waist-high stack of mole skin journals. In addition, Sarah has contributed to F’Dinparkslope.com and edited fiction for Lost Magazine. An excerpt from Sarah’s novel, The Rusticators, is forthcoming in The Brooklyn Writers Space 2013/2014 anthology, The Reader. A resident of Brooklyn for the last eleven years, Sarah lives with her husband, daughter and a dwindling population of cats. Check out more of Sarah’s work at sarahmoriarty.com.