August 23, 22

NEWS / Oklahoma mother struggling to get birth certificate for her 2-year-old daughter

An Oklahoma woman has been struggling to obtain a birth certificate for her daughter for over 2 years since her daughter had been born, Oklahoma’s News 4 KFOR TV reports. Amber Agnew gave birth to her daughter Evelyn in May 2020, when many government agencies were shut down due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, Agnew was in the process of separating from her estranged husband, who was not the father of the child. Since Agnew wanted the name of the biological father to appear on the certificate instead of that of her estranged husband, the hospital advised her to file the birth certificate application herself. “Because of the pandemic, you could no longer go up to the office and just turn in the paperwork and all of that,” Agnew recalls, “You had to mail everything in.” Oklahoma Vital Records eventually responded by making it clear that Agnew needed to file a Denial of Parentage sheet with her estranged husband’s signature. Agnew was eventually able to do that, but could not get any further details from Vital Records as the office in charge of “Paternity” was a different department that was completed closed off to the public. The back-and-forth continued for more than 2 years, with Agnew unable to obtain a Social Security card for her daughter to apply for health and other benefits. Evelyn was at one point even hospitalized with COVID-19, with the bill for that hospitalization still up in the air. Amber Agnew is not the only parent reporting significant delays in dealing with Oklahoma Vital Records in the last couple of years. News 4 reports of another mother, Jordan Jennett, who has been waiting for months to receive a copy of her 1-year old’s birth certificate, resulting in her being unable to apply for any benefits. At the same time, Vital Records is reporting that they have cut their backlog of requests in half since the beginning of 2022 and that they have received all the correct documentation for Amber Agnew’s case so a birth certificate for Evelyn should be in sight.