A hospital mix-up has left a Navy veteran's baby without a legal identity.
According to official medical records, baby Alexis does not exist. Now, her mother is struggling to get a birth certificate for her child.
U.S. Navy veteran Autumn Macias and her boyfriend Jake Farmer had Alexis at the Naval Medical Center San Diego in July.
Macias, who served eight years in the Navy, said she signed all of the proper forms to get a birth certificate, but somehow that information never got to the county. As of Friday, at least according to medical records, baby Alexis was never born.
“She wasn't even in the database as an existing person, which blew my mind,” Macias told NBC 7 Friday -- more than four months after the birth of her daugher.
Macias recently became unemployed.
When she went to get the baby's birth certificate and social security card to apply for aid, she was told there was no record of Alexis’ birth on file. That was the first time the mother had heard of her baby's lack of records.
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“They had nothing on record for her, which I thought was very odd. I wondered why she didn’t get her [Social Security] card mailed to her after her birth,” Macias said.
“I was very shocked, I was very, very upset because I'm in a position right now where I need a little help and I can't even get it because of an error that was made a few months ago,” she added.
The hospital's birth clerk is in charge of sending records to the county. Now, the hospital admits something went wrong but they’re not sure where. The hospital said staff is in the process of reviewing its process for filing newborn records to ensure something like this does not happen again to another patient.
Macias said she needs to pay her rent, buy groceries and baby formula, so waiting a couple of weeks to get baby Alexis’ identification isn’t an option. If she's unable to get financial assistance due to the lack of documents, she could be kicked out of her apartment.
"Now I'm in a situation where I'm pretty desperate," she lamented. "It's detrimental to my situation. I really don't have a couple of weeks; I need help now. [I hope] by the grace of God this can happen much sooner."
As of Friday afternoon, Macias did not yet have Alexis' birth certificate or Social Security Card in her possession.
For now, the only thing the Navy veteran has is a photocopy of the record of live birth for baby Alexis, which includes the infant's footprints and handprints.
"It's got no identification verification, really, which is why I'm having trouble with the county, because I cannot verify her identity, because I don't have her birth certificate or Social Security card," she explained.
The other proof the mother has is baby Alexis herself.
"This little baby, that came out of nowhere, apparently," she said.
Macias said the process of trying to obtain the proper identification records for her child has been exhausting.
"I have to do all the work. I have to jump through hoops to correct the error, the mistake, that was made by someone else," she said.
The mother has started a GoFundMe page online to collect donations for her family.
