Sunday, September 20, 2009

You know how much I love government offices.

Hannah's state certificate of birth arrived in the mail. It says that she was born in China.

Brief geography lesson:

Republic of China (ROC) does not equal China. ROC equals Taiwan. The People's Republic of China (PRC) equals China. Sigh. Just when I thought we were nearing the end of all the paperwork. At least all of our names are spelled right. To my Taiwan adoptive mama friends, does your child's state birth certificate say "Republic of China" or Taiwan?

Better news: When I came home from work tonight my messy kid was walking quite fast! Kevin says that she suddenly picked up a lot of speed today. She'd still prefer to crawl, but it's so fun to celebrate with her as she finally starts to go-go-go!

Still trying to get Hannah into therapists. I'm expecting to spend a lot of work time on the phone tomorrow with my First Steps peeps. They keep advising me of my rights and sending me forms that they completed, but two months after we started this process we still don't have the kind of therapists that we need. They keep wanting to get us a developmental therapist until physical and speech therapists are available. Grrr. Better get some answers tomorrow, or watch out... the mama bear will start to growl.

Updated 9/21/09 at 9:38pm:

Yes, yes... we'll have the birth certificate corrected, of course. Just kinda funny... one more thing that can get messed up does get messed up.

Mama bear's First Steps update: Get this. I call the service coordinator and leave her a message at 9:15am and she doesn't call me back at the work number I left her all day long. At 6pm I check my cell's voice mail during a quick break at work and find a message. ARG! Lady, when I say call me at this number at work... that doesn't mean call my cell phone that's turned off while I'm working! Grrr! The service coordinator says that my physical therapist and speech therapist of choice both have one opening for us, but she's still waiting on a change of service plan paper to be refaxed to her. One of the assessment therapists faxed it last week, but it wasn't readable. The service coordinator asked for it to be faxed again, but the assessment therapist had already turned over the paperwork to somehwere else and the forms had to be hunted down and had not been faxed back yet. It's crazy I tell you. Crazy! Mama bear left Ms. Service Coordinator a stern voice mail message to tell her 1) listen to your messages and call people back at the number they explicitly leave you, not other numbers of your choosing 2) I'm expecting a phone call Tuesday back at work with confirmation that you have received the necessary form and are scheduling our therapy sessions. Thank you. Grrr.

12 comments:

  1. Ogh! Birth Certificate fun... I'm just getting myself revved to start all that. Also starting the therapist route in Oct. You're not allowed to make me nervous girl ;0)! Everytime I explain PRC and ROC... people get this lost look.

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  2. Hah, at least you got your paperwork!!! :-)

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  3. We never had that problems with First Steps! Maybe you should switch cordinators? My friend ended up doing that and is very happy now. I know some counties do have a shortage of certain therapists. Ours only have one developmental therapist and that's just crazy.

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  4. No, No, No...This will not go! Make them change it and send you a new one. It should say the city where she was born and country TAIWAN.
    How frustrating... Glad to hear that Hannah is picking up her pace! Can't wait to see it.
    Keep pushing with First steps. Let them know that you will be flexible, but you are really eager to get it started right away. There are plenty of things that you and Kevin can start practicing with her. Don't you have a friend who specializes is speech? Ask her to give you some things to practice at home while you are waiting. I still have most of Clayton's paperwork and files from the very beginning if you want to take a peek. Let me know!

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  5. Argh!!! Your geography lesson was a big LOL :)

    Sorry for the hassles; I do remember a few folks on our message board having the same trouble, so you are not alone in this!

    I needed to peek back a bit too....your vacation sounded so wonderful and I adored all the cuteness factor x's 2 with HC's cute little fella friend! The matching tees rock!
    :) Lisa

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  6. Our "Record of Foreign Birth" aka US birth certificate does state the city (Taichung, for us) and Taiwan as country. Hope you can get this fixed easily!

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  7. oh goodness! What a mess! Maybe before you her first day of school they will have it right! heehee I understand the therapy thing. We have Early Steps here and we had an eval today to see what services Noah will continue, loose, add etc. The guy that came to do it from the first step in the house made me feel like his entire goal was to PROVE Noah did NOT need the services. Lots of praying going on. His current therapists agree he despretly needs to continue 2 of them, one we probably could do without but it would be such a benefit to him to continue. To them it is work, to us its our babies future! Praying it all gets worked out for HC.

    Blessings,
    Tami
    www.tillGodbringsthemhome.blogspot.com

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  8. How frustrating! I think ours says Taiwan but then I looked for it and of course, couldn't find it anywhere! Ugh! Need to get better organized...

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  9. Sarah,
    Sorry for writing to you via your comments, but I've been looking all over for you. You did my daughter's blog "Dance with Cinderella" and now we are adopting again and I am hoping, praying, and begging you to do one more blog design for us. No one compares to you and I cannot imagine having someone else do it. Please contact me at thehennen5@msn.com. Thanks. Love your photos-beautiful

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  10. oh dear me that will never do, living in Taiwan i know that the people here would say you have to change it. You poor thing what a nightmare. I have to also tell you that most of my mail from the UK (home) goes via Tailand..even when it clearly states Taiwan, ROC...it would appear that not many people know about Taiwan...including the British postal services!

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  11. Just checked our state 'Delayed Registration of Birth', of which we now have two, and they both say country of Taiwan.

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