almost there

Many of you know that since Asher was born in Indonesia there is a lot of paperwork that we have to complete before we can return to the States in December.
Here's a brief synopsis of what has to happen in order for him to make it home for Christmas.

Step One:
We had to get a birth certificate from the hospital. Really it's just a piece of paper with all of the basic information on it signed by the famous Dr. Pujo.

Asher is much more interested in his toys than his birth certificate.

This was easy to get. We filled out one piece of paper at the hospital and sent a text message to Dr. Pujo reminding him to sign it the next time he went to the hospital.
Total Time for Step One: 6 days.

Step Two:
We have to have an official birth certificate from the Indonesian government. This is a fancier piece of paper with a lot less information on it, but it does come with a very official looking seal.

Look at that nice, shiny, official seal.

In order to get this our immigration agent had to have our passports, marriage certificates, our birth certificates, work papers, visas, immigration books and the birth certificate from the hospital. Our immigration agent took all of this to some government office and waited and waited for them to give us the birth certificate. We are pretty sure some money changed hands during this part of the process because the birth certificate was issued on October 9, but was not given to us until November 5.

Total Time for Step Two: 6 weeks of worrying.

Step Three:
The boy needs a passport, social security number and a consular report of birth abroad. We took everything we have mentioned so far, plus the official birth certificate and went to the Consulate. Roger filled out three forms we paid the US Government a good chunk of money and they let Asher become an official American.

We reassured Asher that everybody has a bad passport photo at some point, he just got an early start.

Total Time for Step Three: 5 days (including paperwork being sent to Washington DC and passport being sent back to Indonesia).

So, as of today (Monday) we have heard from the American consulate that Asher's passport is done and can be picked up on Wednesday (Tuesday is Veterans Days. We didn't know, we haven't been to America in a while.).

There is only one step remaining and that is to get Asher a visa and an exit permit. Fortunately this should only take a few days, unfortunately this involves us taking a 2 month old to Immigration to be photographed and fingerprinted and to the police station to be registered as a foreigner.

Bureaucracy and Corruption at its finest!

While we are waiting for everything to finish processing we are heading to Bali for a little big of sun and a lot of eating. Check back next week for pictures from Asher's first trip to the beach. Until then I will leave you with this picture of Asher talking to Mimi on skype.

Mimi come get me! I want to go to America!