This post is coming just a bit before some other posts that I really want to get out about how everything went with the medical care for Caitlyn's delivery. But since I am now a human pacifier and spend most of my day literally with Caitlyn attached to me, I'm going to get to these posts as I can, and in this case it won't be in exactly the order I hoped!
I wanted to cover our experience at the Registro Civil and the process of getting Caitlyn's Acta de Nacimiento or birth certificate and her Argentine DNI.
Normally, you can register your child's birth at the hospital where they were born, however in our case, and probably the case of some of you who might be reading this, we weren't married here in Argentina and thus to register the birth at the hospitalo we would need our marriage certificate apostilled, and then translated here in Argentina by a translator certified by the National College of Translators, and then the translation would have to be certified as well.
The other option and really the easiest for foreigners - whether here legally or illegally, is for both parents to go to the Registro Civ il, with the: passports of both parents, a photocopy of each passportl, and the Certificado de Nacimiento from the place of birth (ie hospital, birthing clinic, etc).
** Beware of one thing with the certification of the birth. In our case the partera or midwife that assisted my obstetrician was the person who certified the birth on the paperwork. Unfortunately she missed my middle initial on my passport name and this caused us to make two trips to the Registro, because the passports needed to match EXACTLY, with no misspellings or omissions. Also, if you plan to apply for permanent residency through your child, you will want to make sure you take a copy of your birth certificate so as to save the hassle later of having to go and get extra certifications or paperwork about the differences.
Once at the Registro, you head to the nice lady at the window for the nacimientos, she looks over your passports and certificado de nacimiento and then gives you a number, sends you off to fill in the personal information on the certificado as well as giving you an Informe Estadestico de Nacido Vivo to fill out as well - this last form essentially asks how many children are born to you at this time, how many you had before, info on your newborn, etc and if you can't comfortably read Spanish, you'll want to take someone with you to make sure you understand the questions, although with basic Spanish you should get by fine.
Eventually, your number will be called and you will go back to the window again, now with your forms filled out for the clerk to review all the information. MAKE SURE YOU PRINT CLEARLY SO THERE ARE NO MISSPELLINGS! Once the information is reviewed then you wait again until the person who registers the birth and prepares the baby's DNI is finished. Once they're ready they call you back up and you then sign the birth registry, again making sure everything is correct, and if the DNI is in stock you get it right then. The official birth certificate takes about a week and requires a trip back to pick up by one of the parents or an authorized person. Something I found interesting by the way, only the father signs their name in the babies DNI book, not the mother...hmphhh.
So there you have it, registering your child born in Argentina, and oh yes, in case you didn't figure it out already, your newborn with automatic Argentine citizenship just gave you the chance to have permanent residency if you so desire.
More to come, including registering the foreign birth of a U.S. and French citizen.
My husband has an argentian passport and I am due to give birth soon as that mean that if I give birth in Argentina I can get my passport through the child and not just through remaining married since we are on a verge of getting divorce
Posted by: michal | Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 07:17 AM
I am in Bs As Argentina (arrived on Dec 31st 2006 from USA) mi visa ends at 90 days from date (Approx. March 30th.) What would be the best way to extend my stay, tomorrow I am going to Imigraciones to ask for extension. I also would like to DNI
Posted by: Joseph Ferran | Wednesday, March 21, 2007 at 12:29 PM