Expats carrying future dual citizens!

[PrePG]

I've noticed that there are lots of us on here who are not originally from the UK - I wondered if anyone was interested in starting an expat thread.

For me, it's especially difficult to go through this without my family close by and I thought it might be comforting to 'talk' with others in the same situation.

Anyone else??

Hello, welcome and congrats on your baby! Mine's due in october as well.

Will your baby be eligible for tri-citizenship??? Is that even possible? I have to get myself together and apply for my UK passport. When all's said and done we'd like to have dual citizenship for DH and anyone else who comes along as well. I can't even imagine trying to find 6+ passports the night before we fly anywhere! It's hard enough now with two!!!

VS me too. I thought Expat is having twins? god !!
But no, ha ha.

Hello again. I couldn't find this thread and seemed to disappear from my 'threads I'm on'. thought I had dreamed it all!

With multi-passports, I know my cousins have s. african, Italian, American, Burkina Faso, AND Mexico passports. They're a very international family, so you probably could get tri-citizenship.

I heard from my sister that my MIL has emailed here asking her what to do for a baby shower! Hooray! Looks like I might get one.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave this thread, as I'm very sadly miscarrying Please do continue it, though - I hope to be back here soon.

Best of luck to you all.

PrePG - I'm very sorry to hear this! I hope you're okay and am sending hugs...

PrePG - so very sorry for you and thinking of you in this difficult time. Hope to see you back here as soon as you're ready.

PrePg - I am so sorry to hear your news. Thinking of you.

Thought I'd gatecrash your thread as I'm expecting a 50% Kiwi/50% Pommie lad in June.

I'm cheating a little posting here because I'm a Brit living in London but have minimal family in the UK (one bro, who is shortly moving to Oz and one 19 year old nephew) so completely understand the 'no family' feeling...

DH has a NZ passport but right to work/abode for the lifetime of two passports. I'd better check the NZ embassy website to find out what I need to do....Planning to end up in Oz or NZ in a few years so need to get it right!

PrePG I'm so sorry to hear your sad news. Take care of yourself.

Is anybody here due in June or around that time? I'm due June 20th and am planning on going on the hospital maternity ward tour this week. Has anyone done one?

Hello! Just discovered this thread - how great. I am an American expat, married to a Brit, living in Lancs for 5 years. Due May 10 with first baby and feeling a bit cut off from my family and friends back in the states. But we are planning a home birth with a wonderful doula who happens to be from Texas!

I am interested to hear about adult expats with dual citizenship - I only have permanent resident status. I didn't realise adults who weren't born here or didn't have a britsh parent could get dual US/UK citizenship. What are the benefits?

We will take the baby down to London to get a US passport sometime in June (what a hassle - I hate how everything official in this country has to happen in London)and take her over to meet her family in NYC and Vermont this August. And while there we will have a big party at which people can give her presents if they want... hopefully nothing too big!... which will essentially be a welcoming party and baby shower. Have been told traveling with a 3-month old is surprisingly easy, but am worried about how 2 weeks in a different time zone will effect her sleeping patterns.... anyone know about this?

Just thought I'd check and make sure you all were still using this thread

Thank you everyone for your well wishes, we're coming around and moving on, but it's difficult.

Welcome Yankunian - I can only tell you the benefits of citizenship from a personal point of view. With permanent residency you can stay here until the end of time if you want, but if you were to leave for more than two years at a time, you'd be back to square one immigration wise. We know we'll always be back and forth, so it was worth it to us to go the extra step and do citizenship so that we don't have to worry about immigration ever again. The application process was pretty easy for us, but the fee was quite hefty - £600+, but it's also always going up, so we thought it was better to bite the bullet and do it now. We hope to get DH's US citizenship at some point as well. Anyone else who comes along will be a dual citizen and I just felt it was important as a mom to be able to go anywhere and every where my children can/will. Does that make any sense? Hope that helps!

Hmmm, PrePG, very interesting - thanks for explaining that, I knew nothing about it. We will be here for many years, I think, as DH is the main breadwinner and there isn't much work in his field in the US (even though I would secretly love to move home...). But we have talked about moving over there for a while later in life, and if that happens I will know to get me dual citizenship sorted.

And, I am so sorry to hear about your loss. I miscarried last year at 10 weeks and it was horrible, took me ages to feel better - but now am 34 weeks with my first babe. I'm sure you will be back on the nest soon enough.

I thought it was someone announcing expat was having twins too

Hello! I'm a British mum with a dual Greek-British son and another on the way! Please humour my ignorance and tell me what a baby shower is, because I've never heard of it before. Is it just having a party where people bring you presents for the baby? If so, people do this anyway in Greece, or at least they all come round in the first months with presents, with another lot at the christening.

Welcome Yankunian. I'm flying to the states with my baby in November, so she will be about 5 months old at the time. Not sure about time change, but I've heard it's not too hard on little ones. If you can buy a portable blackout blind, that helps as you can slowly ease the baby into the time change over a couple of days. I bought one for that reason.
Good luck coming down to London. I don't mind all the big stuff happening there as that's where I live. Easy for me!

Alexpolismum- A baby shower is a party held to celebrate the baby's arrival before the actual arrival. It is a time for people to celebrate the pregnancy and give the mum presents that she will need for her 1st baby (practical presents like baby baths, diapers, other necessities). Games are played related to babies and big bellies. More presents arrive after the birth of the baby, but those are more of whatever the person wants to give, like over-the-top ridiculously cute clothes and stuff.

PregnantPenguin - I was born in the UK but grew up in NZ, married a Kiwi and came back here. I've got both passports and he's just on the NZ one. Was looking this up at the weekend and NZ's rules changed a couple of years ago, now they're similar to the UK, so they distinguish whether you are a citizen by "descent" or not. We're expecting in July, and she'll be British by being born here and to a british mum, but she'll also be able to get Kiwi citizenship by descent. The fun comes if she has kids, if they're born here they can't then claim NZ nationality, but if they're born in NZ they can, and then I think they can apply for UK via their Mum's naturalised citizenship. So I see a generational game of pingpong going on between the two countries to preserve the dual nationality!
Advantages and disadvantages to having parents in in laws 12,000 miles away...

ladyhump - sorry I forgot to check this thread for a while! I'm due in June too (5th) but this is my second LO so I'm not planning on doing a hospital tour. We did one last time (at around 35 weeks) and it was really useful.

FenLondon - Canada is the same as NZ I think, I'm on a british passport as my dad was born here, but I have a Canadian passport as I was born there. My son has both, but his kids wont be Canadian unless they're born there... However, there's also something called right-of-abode which allows you to work and live in the UK if you're from the commonwealth and your grandparents were UK citizens - not sure if that will work the other way but it might apply to our kids and grandkids!

Thanks, ladyhump - it sounds like fun! Pity I can't imagine anyone doing it for me here! OK, this is my second baby, but still, I didn't have it the first time round!

Regarding time change - it shouldn't affect the baby really, as he/she hasn't developed enough of a sense of time yet.

Hi,

I'm British in Argentina, expecting our first baby in August. Does anyone have experience of buying a baby an airline ticket before it is born? Do you just need to find out the sex and choose a name, or is it more complicated?

I bought a domestic flight ticket before baby's birth. I didn't need a name or the sex. I got it online, and all I had to do was tick '1 infant'. Don't know for international flights, though. To make sure, you could email airline company.

We've bought a ticket to go to France in August after the baby, and it was the same as Alexpolismum. We just had to tick '1 infant' and didn't need sex or name.

For us who speak American and not English, or any other language, are there any words that you thought was funny when you first heard it? It took me forever to figure out what a babygro was, and everyone kept telling me they were so important! And I didn't know what a stroller was called. Is it a pram, pushchair, or buggy? I'm starting to get it now though!

Thanks for the advice alexpolismum and ladyhump

I'm curious - what do you call a babygro in America then? The only baby-related word I knew was different in the US was nappy, which (I think, at least, correct me if I'm wrong) becomes diaper. I've been so busy learning all this vocab in Greek that I haven't really thought about English alternatives before!

Hello! I am not pregnant any more, as just given birth to a gorgeous British-Hungarian son, but I thought this thread is great. Hope you'll be able to support each other. Good luck to you all.