Luka and the lawmaker

"Put your hands in the air, and step away from the crib!"
Luka and Constable Robyn 

Well, it was only a matter of time that our son should meet his first police officer - we just didn't think it would happen at the ripe age of 34-weeks gestation.  Seems the only way to get his passport photos and other documentation required for his South African passport application verified, was to have an 'Officer of the Police' verify that they actually witnessed him, in person.  As such, our visit to the police station was futile, but this being Australia, the friendly cop was very happy to put us in touch with the senior constable at the hospital.

Perhaps I should back up a little and just expand slightly on the diplomatic hoops we will have to jump through just to get our boy home to Cape Town...

First of all, by way of his parents' citizenship, Luka is eligible to apply for both South African and US citizenship, but to the detriment of his Aussie fans, he does not qualify for an Australian passport - which also means he will not be rooting for the Wallabies in the Tri-Nations.  Having experience with applying for US passports abroad (we both received our Diplomatic passports in Iraq in a week, and tourist passports in two weeks) we figured, ah - US it is.  Unfortunately, his application must be preceded by a 'Foreign Birth Registration' that requires all three of us to appear, in person, at the US Consulate, which for our convenience while here in Darwin, is located in Melbourne (for those of you not familiar with the geography of Australia - this translates to a mere 3,140km southeast of our current location).  After the appearance, the process takes 4-6 weeks to process, which means since we cannot even get the process started until he is released (estimated at another 3-4 weeks), plus the 4-6 weeks processing time, and we could be celebrating 4th of July with a nice BBQ at the US Consulate in Melbourne.

Enter Plan B.  South African passport.  While a permanent passport will take much longer than the US one (surprise surprise) the South African 'Foreign Birth Registration' does not require us to appear in person, so we could get the process started by post.  Susan recalled getting a temporary passport to travel to Namibia just before her 15th birthday, which Chris confirmed on the website could be done in 10 days - so that was our chance.  Unfortunately they also require loads of documentation that we do not ordinarily travel with - let alone grab in a mad rush while trying to avoid delivering our first-born in a country with one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world, as we acquire emergency visas, have steroids administered, purchase tickets for, and catch an international flight, all in two short hours before the last flight out departs!  Some of the information required pertains to Susan's dual citizenship status, which she was fortunately able to get from the South African Consulate in Los Angeles in record time.  Some of the documentation, we simply cannot access now including her original US Certificate of Citizenship which she obtained 2 days before deploying to Iraq in 2006 with the US Agency for International Development, and which could be in a safe in New Haven CT (for our brief stint there while Chris was attending Yale), or Cape Town (via a shipment from Boston), or Dili (via a shipment from Afghanistan) - who knows!?

With much effort however, and in part thanks to the printer/scanner/copier combo we bought right after our assembly of flours and sea salt, Chris managed to painstakingly assemble 99% of the documentation, including - get this - obtain an actual, original birth certificate for Luka in ...drumroll....two days (only in Australia is this possible)!  All we needed now were a stack of passport photos...

Susan tried her best to photograph Luka in his crib, and to be blunt - failed miserably.  She was just about to give up when one of the nurses informed her that she had contacted the hospital's 'clinical photographer' (whatever that means) on our behalf and that she would come up tomorrow to photograph Luka. Susan was so stunned she did not know what to say - but sure enough, next day a lovely lady named Kara came upstairs, climbed onto a chair, and with the assistance of a nurse we managed to get some recognizable shots of Luka with his eyes open (not a fan of the flash).  All we needed now was for someone to verify that this was our baby, and that the baby that we claimed was ours, was also the baby in the passport photo.

Enter the hospital constable, Robyn - a very likable chap who informed us that his only son was also born prematurely and that he is now a full-sized ten-year old.  He witnessed Luka, then certified the whole stack of documents, photocopies of passports, and of course the passport photos.

With the 3 inch application documentation, including two self-addressed envelopes to our current address in Australia, and one to Pretoria, Chris set off to the post office with high hopes.  Luka's fate is now in the hands of the very friendly SA Consulate staff in Canberra to process, and hopefully grant him a temporary passport so that we can finally get our boy home as soon as he is discharged from hospital!

Note to our Readers:  If you know anyone in the South African High Commission in Canberra - now is your chance to become (in)famous on the Loving Luka blog by calling in a favor - I am sure I can bake some koeksisters or vetkoek to send down there!