I was given a name so unusual the government took my rights away - it was tied to an extreme tragedy, and now I'm fighting to change it

Daily Mail​

6 hours ago

A Texas woman with an unusual name and no social security number has been battling the government for her identity.
Sandra Wardlow, a 39-year-old from Houston, is named 'Baby Girl' on her birth certificate.
'My mom passed away when I was nine-months-old and she didn't name me,' Sandra told DailyMail.com. 'My birth certificate is just "Baby Girl" and my last name.'
She was raised by her mother's first cousin and has gone by Sandra for as long as she can remember.
'My birth mom's name is Cassandra, so my mom who raised me just gave me half of my mom's name,' Sandra explained.
Now married and working as a property manager, the mother-of-four is facing the consequences of a logical discrepancy she had no part in creating.
She has tirelessly going back and forth with agencies including Social Security and the Texas Department of State Health Services to correct her birth certificate.
But the process has been both expensive and convoluted, with no one able to rectify the issue to date.
'It was like everybody was giving me a runaround - "Do this, we need this..."' she said.
Over the years, Sandra recalled being turned down from jobs or being unable to open bank accounts, but now that she has children, matter have only gotten worse.
Due to her identity issues, Sandra said she is not allowed to pick up her own kids' birth certificates.
She has also struggled with eligibility for her SNAP benefits because in order to receive them, she must provide a Social Security number. Further complicating matters, she has been issued a state ID, which ordinarily would require having a SSN.
Growing impatient with the lack of answers she has been receiving from various government agencies, she has become increasingly concerned that 'Sandra' is not being legally acknowledged.
'They're saying Sandra doesn't exist - I'm legally married under that name, so am I not married?' she asked, outlining her uniquely difficult circumstances.
'I still didn't get no answer to that. Nobody ever reached out to me about that.'
Sandra wants to go on a cruise with her family, but the legal confusion surrounding her identity has made travel virtually impossible.
Now married and working as a property manager, the mother-of-four is facing the consequences of a logical discrepancy she had no part in creating
'I just want to fix my name,' she reiterated. 'So I can do stuff with my kids...This isn't my fault.'
A Nebraskan toddler has found herself in the same boat as Sandra - as the little girl's father has been trying to legally change her name from Unakite Thirteen Hotel to Caroline.
The perplexing backstory behind the one-of-a-kind name began when Carolina was born inside a home in Council Bluffs, Iowa and was transferred to state custody without a birth certificate or Social Security number.
Her mother was reportedly suffering from a drug problem, and was not currently in a relationship with the child's father, Jason Kilburn of Omaha.
The little girl was taken into foster care, and Kilburn successfully fought for custody of his daughter.
But while she was in the state's care, Nebraska's Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) gave the child her unorthodox computer-generated name.
'I'm worried that this child fell between the cracks,' attorney Josh Livingston told WOWT in February.
'And I'm worried that when it became apparent that this child fell through the cracks, nobody...with any authority did anything to fix it.'