The CRBA Saga

I figured it had been too long since we'd had a good "saga" post. The drive home from that birthday party that I mentioned? That could have been an entire post in itself. I left out all of the drama of Kennedy getting sick in the car on the way to the party. I neglected to mention the fact that as we're walking through the mall back to the car after picking her up, she threw up all over the floor...and continued to do so for about 50 feet until we reached the bathroom. Once we'd finally made it to the car and were on our way--in the middle of terrible traffic in the dark--she threw up again, all over herself (in spite of the fact that she was now armed with a plastic bag and gobs of paper towels). So I was trying to figure out where to drive while Eric was trying to clean her up in the backseat. Oh yeah, it was a saga alright.

The CRBA saga went on for so long, though. It really deserves it's own post.

Back in December, I mentioned that Eric had accidentally thrown away Reece's Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA). This document is nearly as important as his passport. He's got a Korean birth certificate and an English translation of his Korean birth certificate, but when it comes to dealing with anything official in the States, they're going to need his CRBA. It basically acts as his birth certificate when registering for school, etc. It is also an important document to have here in Korea, because without it Reece can't get his Alien Registration Card (ARC). Which basically means he's still here as a tourist. Sweet.

Our trip home at Christmas was obviously contingent on the arrival of Reece's passport, but we also needed the CRBA so that we could apply for his ARC. (gotta love the acronyms!) Even if we didn't have the card, the woman at school who organizes all of our official Immigration paperwork said that we needed to at least have his ARC number to re-enter Korea. Since, we'd lost the CRBA, we were in a huge rush to get all of this done.

So, we wrote out the request for another, per the Dept. of State's website. Then, I went to the Embassy to have that letter notarized. (Seriously?!) Then, we paid extra to have it expedited. Of course. (The same guy who did all of our passport and CRBA paperwork at the Embassy notarized my letter, so that was embarrassing! Ha!) At this point, we'd paid more for the replacement than we paid for the original. We were now more than $200 into this thing and still didn't have anything to show for it!

Thankfully, because Reece wasn't 90 days old by the time we returned to Korea, we didn't have any problem traveling, but we still had this January 28th date looming. The CRBA still hadn't arrived. You can't call the Embassy here and talk to anyone; you have to make an appointment. They also don't communicate via email; you have to make an appointment. But, the fact is that once we'd sent this letter, the Embassy here in Seoul couldn't do anything. Now, it was up to the Dept of State, located on the East coast. Eric's only option at this point was to either stay up late to call once they'd opened or get up early to call.

So, for a couple of weeks, Eric stayed up until 11:00 pm our time to call. He was never able to speak to the person who was responsible for getting us the CRBA. It was an extremely frustrating time. He would call every night, and every night someone would say that the person he needed to speak with was "out of the office" or "busy." He left messages, and in the beginning, he would stay up even later, waiting for the guy to call back. But he never did.

As it was becoming increasingly clear that the CRBA was not going to arrive in time for Reece's 90 days, we started talking about and looking at the nearby "Immigration trips." We have many friends (not working for international schools!) that have had to make the trip to Japan just to deal with expiring visas. Since Eric knew that the idea of flying to Japan and back was not going to thrill me, he instead started looking at flying to Guam and spending the night before returning. (This "little" mistake was getting more and more costly.) That was sounding much better.

Unfortunately, this is when my genius kicked in. For whatever reason, it hadn't occurred to us that Reece's 90 day tourist visa started over when we returned from the States. As a matter of fact, it doesn't expire until right after we leave for the Philippines. Only God could have orchestrated that timing!

A couple of weeks ago, Eric was talking to one of the dad's at yet another birthday party when he picked up the kids. This man happened to work at the Embassy and so Eric brought up our dilemma. As I mentioned, the Embassy here doesn't have any control of the CRBA once the paperwork is taken care of, but he was willing to look into it for us. He made some calls and found that it was on track and it should be arriving soon. He said that while he doesn't really have any pull, if we run into any more snags, we should contact our State Senator because when they get involved, things start moving quickly. I think he must have more pull than he knows, though. Shortly after, Eric received an email informing us that the CRBA had arrived at the Embassy here in Seoul!

Reece's CRBA finally arrived at school last week. We don't have time to apply for his ARC before we leave this weekend because they have to take his passport, but hopefully things will be on track now. And hopefully, we won't have any problems at Immigration upon arrival back in Korea at the end of the week. A happy ending to yet another expat saga...and now I'm off to continue packing for the Philippines! We're so excited for warm weather and sandy beaches!

Reece's Milestones: Week 2

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a dinner with several newly married couples with no kids on Friday, so our kids got a lot of attention. "Uncle" Ross rocked Reece to sleep, patiently waiting out the crying. Later, he and the other "uncles" wound up the older two in a squirt gun and silly string fight. On Saturday, we had Thanksgiving with several other families, so there were ten kids running around a little, tiny apartment filled with people and food. It was crazy, but lots of fun! Reece is a month old and has celebrated his first Thanksgiving as I'm writing this, but I want to make sure that I've recorded the milestones from his first weeks, too.

These days, he's a little fussier than he was in the first couple of weeks. About every other night, we get a five or six hour stretch out of him between feedings. Much of the time, he sleeps that whole stretch, too. Of course, I don't usually sleep that whole time, but most nights I manage to get about four consecutive hours, and I'm thankful for that. I know it could be much worse...and trust me, we have tougher nights, too!

The following Saturday, when Reece was just over a week old, Eric decided he needed to play in his baseball game. Knowing that it would mean a long day for me with all three kids alone for the first time, he arranged a play date for the older kids for a couple of hours. The only challenge was that we all had to get into the car to drop them off, and we had to be on time because we were meeting them on the street corner near their house. Though Reece cried the entire time, we all got out and we were even on time! Eric picked the kids up on the way home from his game.

That night, Reece finally lost his umbilical cord, which was exciting. It's always such a relief to not have that hanging on anymore (even more so here because the stump was considerably longer). Reece also had his first bottle that afternoon. He has been a fussy eater on and off since the very first week. Sometimes when he nurses, he seems absolutely convinced that there's no milk, and sometimes I have more patience than others. So, on this day, I pumped while he took his first bottle. He didn't have another bottle for a week, but now he is taking a bottle at 11 pm, so that I can pump and go to bed earlier.

The next day was Sunday, and we all stayed home and tried to relax and get caught up on chores. At one point, Cade was looking at him and asked, "What are those little bumps on his cheeks?" I told him that it was called baby acne (poor baby got it really bad, but it's looking much better now!). A moment later, Reece sneezed and Cade asked, "What's a baby sneeze called, Mom?" It's a sneeze, Cade. Just a sneeze. Cracked me up!

Monday was our biggest day since Reece's birth because we had to go to the Embassy to get his passport. The list of items that we needed to have with us was pretty intimidating since we had to try to prove that Reece (and his parents) should be an American citizen. It turned out to be much easier than we thought, although there was a lot of waiting involved. To be expected, I suppose. In celebration of our success (and since we still had some time before the older kids needed to be picked up), we headed to the Starbucks right next to our bus stop. For some reason, I had thought this would be a good place to feed Reece, as well, but of course, after checking all three floors, there was only one table and two chairs available in the entire Starbucks and it was right in the middle of the room. It's a good thing I'm not too shy about nursing in public!

In addition to Reece's passport, we also had to apply for a Consular Report of Birth Abroad, which essentially operates as Reece's birth certificate in the States. This is an important document, obviously. Unfortunately, the man who helped us at the Embassy neglected to inform us that the CRBA would be mailed to us in the same envelope as the passport. So, in his excitement that Reece's passport had arrived, Eric threw away the envelope, as well as the CRBA. When he brought the passport to one of our HR people at school to work on Reece's Alien Registration Card (seriously...so much paperwork to make this kid official!), she asked where the CRBA was and he had no idea. We have had to go through a mad dash to request another one in order to get Reece's ARC. It's been a little stressful, to say the least! Yesterday, in 30 degree weather, wind, and snow, Reece and I had to trek back to the Embassy to have a letter notarized in order to request another CRBA. Hopefully, it will be here soon!

The remainder of Reece's second week was a little less eventful. Eric returned to school on Tuesday, so the two of us spent our days adjusting to just the two of us. I barely moved from my chair for 3 days, as I'd resigned myself to not accomplishing any household chores, and I was fine with it! On Friday, I decided it was time to leave the house again, so Reece made his debut at Friday morning Bible study at church. The ladies were all excited to meet him and my arms were excited for the rest!

I take at least one picture of this boy every day with my phone but haven't been very good about using the real camera. If you follow me on Instagram, you get a lot of #babyspam, and if you don't, well, then you haven't seen all of these pictures already!

Immigration...

First off, I just need to say that we went to immigration this morning, and aside from the awful drive (if you haven't seen it in the news yet, Seoul is getting flooding it's never seen before and many streets and highways are flooded!), it was extremely easy! One of the amazing Korean women on staff took care of all of our paperwork to apply for our alien registration cards, and when we arrived she handed us our stack of paperwork and the money for the card. All we had to do was hand the woman the stack and have our fingerprints done (also considerably easier than in the States). Then we were back on the bus for another awful drive, we are so thankful that they make everything so easy for us! It will about 3 more weeks before we get our cards, though. So at least that long until we have Internet at home. We may be able to set up a time to use one of our neighbor's Internet in the meantime, and if so, we'll let you know!