Congratulations! You have a beautiful baby! Now comes the headache of lots and lots of paperwork that has to be done. It looks like a huge amount, but if you get it all out of the way in the first week, you can sit back and enjoy parenthood without too many worries.
At the Hospital: Just before you leave the hospital, they will give you a number of pieces of paper including: A yellow form which is the register of your baby’s birth with a fingerprint form An alta/informe about your health and how the birth went for your doctor A little book called Documento de Salud Infantil which is to keep track of your baby’s health etc. Take this to each paediatrician appointment. Keep hold of these. At your Medical Centre: Make an appointment for you to see your doctor as soon as you can. Also, while your there, try to get an appointment for baby to see the paediatrician; they may not let you do this until you have the baby registered, but they may be nice and give baby a check-up anyway. When you see your doctor, tell him your baby has been born and give him the alta thing from the hospital. He will change your baja (if you had one) and give you three copies of another form Informe de Maternidad; 1 for Social Security, 1 for school, and 1 for you. He should also give you a maternity pay form and an appointment to see the midwife. At the Civil Registry: You need to visit the Registro Civil de Madrid as soon as you possibly can to register the baby’s birth and get your Libro de Familia. The offices can be found at Calle Pradillo 66. You can often park outside, which is handy because you really all need to go. It is round the back of where Jo Barr lives and there are signposts from the main road. Take with you as much paperwork as you can: the yellow form from the hospital (filled in) your passports, DNIs etc. your birth certificates, marriage certificates etc. You have to go into a door on the right (outside), take a ticket and then go upstairs. If you have an even number, you need to be on one floor, an odd number the other. You take a form and fill it in whilst you wait for your number to come up. Don’t worry if you don’t understand bits or can’t fill in certain bits; they are really friendly and helpful and will go through the form with you as they enter it all into the computer. They will give you your Libro de Familia (if you don’t already have one) and the blue maternity pay form to apply for your €100 a month. Now go downstairs and into the main building. You need to take your Libro de Familia upstairs to get a birth certificate printed. They will automatically give you a Spanish one. Ask for an international one too.
At School: Take maternity forms into school once you have filled out everything you can. Juan Antonio should do the rest. He may ask you to go back later to collect them. Also take in your alta from the doctor if you were signed off before the birth. Use the photocopier whilst you are there to get all the copies you need for the social security (see below). At the Social Security Office: Next, you need to visit the Instituto Nacional de La Seguridad Social, Avenida de Espaňa 20, San Sebastian de Los Reyes. This place is difficult to find. As you go down Avenida de Espana from La Gran Manzana, past Alcobendas station, it is on the left hand side near a small children’s park and a Centro de Salud. You can usually park outside. Take with you: Photocopies of your bank details Maternity forms, filled out by you and school Last few nominas, photocopied Your Tarjeta Residencia, photocopied Your Social Security forms or card Libro de Familia, photocopied Get a ticket for the Maternidad person and wait. They will go through everything with you and give you a little white card to fill in (benficiario form). This will be stapled to your social security card to entitle your baby to medical care.
At your Medical Centre (visit 2): Take social security card with benficiario form to your Centro de Salud. They will fill in the forms to apply for your baby’s medical card. They give you a piece of paper which acts as baby’s temporary medical card until the proper plastic one arrives in the post about three months later. If you haven’t already, make an appointment for your baby to see their paediatrician.
At some point before you return to work, fill in the blue maternity pay form and take it to the hacienda with your bank details.
Good luck!