I am an American citizen, my boyfriend Is Dutch, and your first child is due in September. We are already dealing with a lot of crap in regards to him acknowledging our son, We will have to travel to the Dutch embassy here in the US when I am 8 1/2 months pregnant, and if I go into labor or am unable to travel when he gets here to the US, we will have to deal with court or my boyfriend will have to apply for residency for our son for him to live there in Holland for 3 years before he can acknowledge him after his birth. The problem is that my boyfriend is having trouble finding a job that meets the qualifications for me to gain residency with him, much less our son as well. I am also aware of the fact that customs in Holland can prevent me from taking my son out of the country when my 3 month visit visa expires.

Is there an easier way to do all of this? Isn't family togetherness important to the Dutch government?

Also, I have read a lot of people that are having trouble similar to mine, But they are from other countries. Being a US citizen, I am not required to pass the integration of language tests, which really only make things a tiny bit easier on us. Any help?

As an American, you won't have to take the inburgering exam abroad but your husband will still need to earn at least 1500 euro nett (might have increased again?) and have a one year contract (not a day less). You will have to attend an inburgering course once your permit is approved.

They don't care if your husband and child are Dutch. All they care is if you fulfill the requirements.

Alternatively, you might be able to use the EU-route. I don't know much about that -someone else should be able to help.

mei is right - I remember I read at IND website somewhere last week that they have again revised(http://www.ind.nl/en/inbedrijf/actueel/Met_ingang_van_1_juli_2008_nieuwe_normbedragen.asp) the gross income requirement for the sponsor who are applying for family reunification/ formation.

Maybe you can get your spouse/partner to try the Belgian route:
1)Your partner/spouse to live and work in Belgium (http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/free_movement/index_en.htm)

2) "Import" you to Belgium without MVV and live there as a partner/spouse before move back to NL
(http://www.buitenlandsepartner.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?printertopic=1&t=32000&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&vote=viewresult)

Good luck!

First get the child acknowledged, then work on getting there.
If you wait until after his birth its gets more complicated.
As for taking the son to Holland during a visit visa, while it may be difficult I'd see if your parents could help out and take care of the child during your visit since you seem to be concerned you might not be able to get him out after the visit. Better to be away from him up to 3 months versus over a year or more.

I don't know much about your situation but I know .. first things first.

FIRST THING: As mentioned above ... your Dutch man MUST acknowledge legally that you are carrying his child. I know there is something about this happening before the birth. If you wait until AFTER the birth ... umm something gets messed up and then it becomes much harder. I read about this is a thread and I've forgotten the whole thing. But this should be your primary focus at this moment if you are 8 1/2 months along!

Secondly, your partner WILL find a job such that he is able to support you ... eventually .. don't worry about this part right now. Then he can sponsor you to come here. Because the baby has been legally documented as his ... having him/her move here should not be a problem. This should be a secondary concern.

Yes, there are many cases of families that are not together because they messed up this process. So the wife/baby are sitting in one country and the Dutch hubby is in this country!

So to answer your question .. No, family togetherness is not important to the the Dutch immigration authorities (the IND). You should be very clear about this. The NL is not like The States and they are not very willing to bend the rules just to allow yet another foreigner to squeeze into this tiny overpopulated country.

Again, you need to be very clear about this .. if anything .. to set your expectations.

So have your baby legally recognized by the father within the Dutch system immediately ... if not sooner!!

I find it interesting that once you look at the IND site that the figures for Family Formation have indeed gone up but Family Reunificationdoesn't seem much different to me or am I missing something? I realise that they have always treated the two categories differently but it seems like a more signifcant increase for Family Formation, it's also worth pointing out that these figures are netto not bruto so in other words there's more money involved than meets the eye.

Has your Dutchman looked into a second job? Mine had to get one to meet the netto requirements...

The Dutch immigration rules on families are really, really messed up. Officials like to split up families and destroy lives.... but that's what happens when you have a society that believes in nothing and has no values. But hey, there's an easy way to sail around all the garbage, it's called the EU route. Go over to Buitenlandsepartner.nl to find out more. Folks over there have a lot of experience with things/

You don't have to do the Belgium route, you can do the Ireland route, the UK route, etc etc etc. You do that, and Dutch officials can't say jack, and you don't have to take any worthless integration course or the like.

Blarfy, from my understanding the EU route applies to everybody who is from an EU state...... except the Netherlands. Don't take my word for it though, but I'm fairly sure that I have read that if the partner was British for instance, then you could apply for the EU route - if he is Dutch, then they don't have this ability.

Not true, that's exactly why the EU route is in place. The dutch national resides in a member state with spouse/partner and re-enters the Netherlands not as a dutchie but as a former resident of say Belgium with full EU rights. Only problem is they must reside for a minimum of six months in other EU country and fulfill all legal requirements which are admittedly more lenient than in NL but it's a lot of upheaval especially if you have kids of school age...

According to http://www.postbus51.nl/index.cfm/t/Wat_is...laydefaultintro , if you are married to this boyfriend, it counts for the Dutch laws that he has automatically recognized the child at the time of his/her birth (you do have to be married before such moment). I don't know if there is any proviso about the length of such marriage (e.g. requiring some duration of marriage before child's birth). In such case, formal recognition at the embassy is not necessary. So, you could think of getting married to this boyfriend (if you aren't already married to him).