Hi Karina Duvall,

It is a sad situation. I am US citizen and my wife and I met there. She was born in Moscow and has both Russian and US citizenship.

We got married in June in Moscow while expecting our first child, who was born a few days ago.

The relationship broke down during the pregnancy.

I will need to return to USA very soon for financial reasons and she will be staying here with her parents. She will return to New York with the baby in the new year. She has lived in New York permanently since she was young, but wanted to have the baby here.

I will need to get copies of documents such as the marriage certificate and have them apostilled, but I am not in a position to take care of this myself before I leave Moscow. This will be very important to ensure that my rights as the father of the child are recognized in New York. (In the USA a father is automatically a legal guardian of a child if he is married to the mother when the child is born).

I hope you will be able to help me with this. Any other advice you have for me would be welcome.