Well, That Worked

Somewhere in the stacks is our baby's birth certificate.

You have no idea how close I came to writing the opposite title. We just spent three full days in Guadalajara trying to get Jari's birth certificate fixed, and it looked like it was a lost cause. Everyone kept telling us it was impossible. Oh, no, they said, you need a lawyer, and it will take a year to fix. But paperwork is kind of like life. Persistence is key.

On the our last day in Guadalajara, we decided to pester the ladies at the Registro Civil just one more time, and for some reason that was the day they suggested going to the main archive office. That's where we met the man who would solve all our problems. You see, Jess and James had a similar issue, and they had gotten an amendment to the birth certificate clarifying Jess's name. So we knew we could do something similar, but we had to fight for three days through the "you can't do that" crowd. The folks at the archive office seemed to deal with this sort of thing all the time, or they perhaps took pity on us. Whatever the case, after a gathering of paperwork (and lots of stamping!), we finally got an amendment to the birth certificate, and Jari can now easily get a Mexican passport.

On a somewhat unrelated note, we love, love, love Guadalajara. Unlike Puerto Vallarta, the weather is gorgeous. There's a ton of things to do. The food is cheap and good and so is the coffee. It's a super vibrant city that has an old-world, European flavor but with bomber tacos, and as an added bonus they have great public transportation.

The subway in Guadalajara.

 The public transportation is especially fun because Jari is a smile predator. Like a lion at the watering hole, he is constantly on the lookout for his next victim, and a bus is the perfect environment for him to grin at every passing stranger.  And all the Mexicanos are happy to oblige. He even got passed around the Registro Civil and had a ball, giggling and drooling on everyone's important documents. This kid is a total ham.

Jari in his element.

As to how we should have filled out the hospital paperwork, honestly, after all this I'm still not sure. It seems as though every gringo we spoke with or read about who had a baby in Mexico got some portion of the name wrong. I'll update this post if I ever figure it out.