How Many Squirming Toddlers Does it Take to Get One Baby's Brazilian Birth Certificate?

One might have assumed the hardest part of having a baby in Brazil would be the birth. Oh no! As we would come to find out, the pushing and the actual birth were child’s play compared to officially documenting her arrival with the Brazilian bureaucracy.

Perhaps, I exaggerate. The process needn’t have been complicated except for home births, two witnesses are required to be present when applying for the birth certificate since there is no hospital documentation. No problem. I was well-aware of this requirement and came to the Cadastro prepared. Elise and I had waited until my mom was in town before we applied for Clementine’s birth certificate. Problem solved. We had our second witness.

Only I, as the father, couldn’t be a witness. When asked why I couldn’t be a witness, the only reply I got was that I was the father “mesmo”, or I was the father himself or itself which made no sense to me. I wasn’t trying to overstate my importance in her birth. I readily acknowledge I didn’t do anything except witness. So, how could I not be a witness. This guy was giving me way more credit than I deserved.

After my failure to convince him otherwise—in what, I thought, to be rather suave, convincing Portuguese—Elise got on the wire and tried to find us a witness. Our mid-wife could come but it would take time. So we contacted a good friend who could come. She would have to pry her two kids from the playground to meet us. We would wait.

We had brought Peter who by this time was begging for pão de quiejo. Several giant pão de quiejo later, she would arrive. Our entire party was eight. Eight people for one birth certificate for one baby. Two babies. Two toddlers. Peter, transitioning to big boy underwear, forgot to tell us (or we forgot to remind him) he had to go to the bathroom, and peed in his pants outside the Cadastro. Phinney was sick and lay motionless in the stroller, his legs dangling over the side, seemingly panting for breath, and Clementine started to wake up; we were on the verge of full-blown chaos.

Fortunately, we were able to get out of there in the nick of time, narrowly avoiding disaster. Clementine now has her birth certificate, printed on paper out of a printer; we could have almost done it ourselves. Had we enough witnesses.