Silly paperwork required.

A few years ago, I went to see a solar eclipse in Africa. M and I had already been trying to get pregnant for at least a year and a half at the time, and I bought a fertility symbol, and a bunch of baby clothes from a women's batik/sewing cooperative called Global Mamas. In cute, bright colors, three dresses and a romper. Both purchases were made as a sign of great hope that we could conceive.

When I got back, the clothes were stored away, in a box with fabric, in our extra bedroom. Two years later, and while packing the house to move Switzerland, I finally found out I was pregnant. I had already given away a few "maternity" type dresses a month earlier that my friend K had helped me let go of. I had kept them for so long and they represented a strange mix of sadness and hope. As with many of the clothes she helped me get rid of, the phrase "Can you honor the thought behind the item (uuuugly maternity dress, gift I never wore, etc.) and then let it go?"

Yup, you bet. The uuuugly dress went away. "You'll get some much cuter maternity stuff anyway when you get pregnant, to celebrate." was K's reasoning. But the baby clothes I kept because I could still always give them as a gift.

Now, they were packed in a box with itemized contents, so I could definitely find them for summer once the baby came. We got to Zurich, and the guest apartment, things got unpacked and repacked, and we moved to our current place. And the baby clothes disappeared.

I have looked everywhere for them. I can't even remember if I saw them in the guest apartment, but assume I must have because that box was itemized and they were in there. I have found every single other thing I packed. I have searched and re-searched the apartment and the storage unit. And finally I just mentally let go of the clothes. Summer is ending, and I will try to order one replacement dress on-line. It won't be the same, with the same meaning, yearning, full of good wishes and hope, but it can take on a new meaning.

Well, in the ridiculously complex process for getting baby A's US passport and consular report of birth abroad, we need not only our original birth certificates issued in the last 6 months, but also a marriage license the same, and to prove that one of us lived in the US for 5 years in a row after age 14. Really? Really, you can't take IRS and border control information. I need to get grad school transcripts, too, to prove my residence? Really?

So today I was looking for my old passport to find some dates (month AND day) of trips out of the US, and I needed to get into the lock box. It is one of those fireproof cases, where we've always kept things we want to save in a fire. I figured that was the most likely place I've stored my old passport. After an hour of searching for the key, I finally opened it.

No passport, no marriage license, no vaccination records. Just 4 things inside the lockbox. Not even important papers.

Here they are.



A part of me finally exhaled. I can't believe I finally found them. I was sure they were lost.

They are even big enough for baby A to wear next summer.

Now, where's my old passport?