Picture post

As promised - Some pictures to offset my complaining about bureaucracy.

Noah looking more and more awake nowadays.

And he can sit up a lot straighter (with a bit of help offcourse)

The camera is nice and shiny and gets some attention as well.

Noah got a little - traditional oriental medicine - belly cushion send from Singapore.We hope it helpes because he has lots of trouble with wind.

A picture from his (bigger) bed as promised in my previous post.

Daddy feeding Noah a bottle. He is totally concentrated.

So two new posts in two days, we might post again in the weekend.

Thijs

How to register an alien - A story in 12 steps

Just a story of how frustrating it can be to work your way through bureaucracy when things happen in a different way.

As you are all aware Noah was born in Belgium, and I had to register his birth there. This would be the same in the Netherlands, births get registered in the birthplace.

So far so good. Now because of all the stress and time we were with Noah, registering him in the Netherlands took a while (not that it would have mattered anyway). So let me guide you through the steps.

12 easy steps to get completely tangled in the bureaucratic jungle:

1. Get your son's registered in a foreign city


2. Do not register him there as a resident (he is not, so this seems logical)


3. You now have a child that is already 'lost' , as he doesn't live anywhere


4. Try to get him registered as a resident in your home town. They will demand proof that he is alive, to be issued by the town he is registered in (uhmmm.... he isn't anywhere)


5. Now try to get him registered as a dutch citizen. Get put on hold. Get transferred to immigration services. They will only register when your kid shows up in person (impossible for the next 4 months at least).


6. Get helpful people on the phone!


7. They offer to visit, but.... only in The Hague. Maybe register him in Rotterdam? Impossible because he doesn't have an address there, and the hospital is not allowed as an address either.


8. Hope they phone you back as promised and have not lost your original paperwork in the meantime.


9. Meanwhile get called by the insurance saying they need his official registration number to be able to complete his files. I got the feeling they won't like waiting for another 4 months, and we definitely won't enjoy paying Noah's intensive care bills ourselves. Oh well, wait and see for now. I'll continue my story later, after they phoned me back......


10. They phoned back! Incredible! Noah will be registered with the immigration office next week, although I need to get a statement from the hospital confirming he is unable to travel, and is our son. The secretary who confirmed the appointment after I spoke to the immigration officer was completely pythonesque in her approach though.... I agreed to an appointment on Tuesday, the 16th at 14.30. So she told me she had to reschedule to Tuesday, 11th 14.45. I said okay, as long as it is Tuesday 16th 14,45 and not on Thursday the 11th that's okay with me. Fine sir, Tuesday. Ah, we do have an opening at 14.30 on Tuesday, so Tuesday the 11th at 14.30 it is. You mean the 16th? Yes sir, Thursday the 16th at 14.30. Sounds of my head hitting the desk reverberated through the office..... Anyway, I hope my appointment is set now.


11. The hospital: I forgot to ask our regular doctor to write a letter for the immigration office, so I asked the nurse on duty Friday to get the doctor in attendance to write one when he (or she) had time. No problem and a nice gleaming letter was waiting for us on Sunday. Unfortunately not complete (no mentioning of his inability to come to the office), so I asked the nurse (another one) to have he then attending doctor (also another one) to rewrite it. Luckily Louise managed to get the letter on Monday afternoon... The then attending doctor actually wrote it on the spot, telling her that she should ask earlier. He quickly took back that comment when he heard we first mentioned it on Thursday evening. Never mind, it is settled.


12. Getting te original documents back. Off course they didn't phone me as promised, or even can be reached by phone. Well, lets drop by and see. Luckily Leuven gave us two birth certificates, so that is at least something. Hopefully I can get my international birth certificate back though... Will be going to their office before going to the immigration services to see if I can get to see some one when I show up in person.

Well, I'm afraid you'll getting a sequel, I think somewhere after Tuesday the 11th/16th ;-). I may have gone slightly insane......

Thijs

A quick update: The people I met today were very helpful. Noah's birth certificate was returned in good order, and the lady even tried to register me, she used to work and has some friends in the immigration office. Unfortunately her contacts were not available. The guy at the immigration office processed everything without any problems, now we just have to wait for the bureaucracy to do it's work..... about 4 to 6 weeks.

To make up for all this whining I'll try to post some pictures tonight!

Almost two months old - a look to the future.

Hello,


Noah is just over two months old now, so time for a big update.
I'll start with what is going on now.

He now weighs a massive 4550 gm (10 pounds), and has outgrown his first clothes at 57 cm. We have plenty more clothes, so the only problem is picking something and actually finding something in the baby room. We hope the furniture gets delivered soon, so we have some storage space for all his stuff.


He is growing very well, which is good. The doctor actually asked the nurse to weigh him again because he is growing so quickly, he couldn't believe it. He is also starting to get a little bit more active (sleeping only 20 -22 hours a day) and now easily recognizes his mummy and papa. He is now able to smile somewhat, and get he is getting more coordinated. He now has 7 bottle's a day (every three hours, skipping the 3 in the morning bottle), of around 95 ml. each. Louise is still expressing milk to give him the best food possible.
Because he has grown a lot, they have given him a bigger bed, but that could also be because of the mountain of toys and stuffed animals in the bed.....

-- insert picture of overview of bed --

Louise got her first real smile Thursday, her heart melted and she is still not recovered. She's thinking of quitting her job and just focusing on making him smile again. Not very practical I know, but she claims it would be worth it :). Noah has discovered his hands and is getting more coordinated in using them. Friday Louise watched him accidentally make something move when he waved his hands about, he did it a few times and then you could see him realise that it was his hand doing it. That also got a smile!

Aside from visiting Noah, we have been very busy. Last week I went to Nieke and Joost's wedding while Louise stayed at home to look after Noak and Lilo. Last Saturday was Bas's stag party, and Anneke kept her company. They went to visit Noah together, and Anneke got to give Noah a bottle as well.

Friday I went to the gemeente and tried to register Noah. He is most likely an illegal immigrant (alien?) right now, but hopefully this will be sorted soon. It was obviously to much to deal with on a late friday afternoon, so they promised to call me today.

This weekend Marloes and Bas's wedding. We had a great time, as did everyone. The bride and groom looked wonderful, so we didn't do any lasting damage to Bas during his stag night.

Off course there is the usual work, house, shopping etc to keep us busy as well, but I won't bore you with those. We do have to entertain Lilo everyday, so I just post these two pictures of her.

That says it all!

A quick look to the future:

For us: We will take some time this weekend to organize Noah's stuff and catch up on house work after two very busy weekends. We'll be off to Germany (Trier most likely) for a weekend away, in the beginning of October. Anneke and my parents have kindly offered to look after Noah and Lilo, so that should be a nice break for us.

Louise will have to go back to work at the end of October, she will most likely start working 3 days a week, spread out over 4 days (4 days of 6 hours). She is getting fit quite quickly, so that should not be a big problem.

For Noah: The doctor is keeping us up to date once a week, and he told us last week that they think they can operate to remove the blockage in his throat when he weighs about 7 kg and can breath for himself. They expect him to grow at around 120 -150 grams week, so in about four months he should be big enough. Because his condition is so rare, they cannot predict when his lungs will be strong enough to do the operation, but we hope that will be around the same or even before that time. They are quite confident that they can save his vocal cords, so he will start to produce some sounds in time to learn to talk (we may regret this...). This also means that he will come home without his canule which will save us a lot of worry and stress looking after it (the canule).

It may take a few weeks for him to recover from the surgery and learn how to breathe through his mouth and nose again, but that is a step he will have to take anyway.

So: looking to the future, Noah will come home earliest around Christmas (this year, unlike the house which will also be finished before Christmas!!), and that is offcourse what we are hoping for.

Trying to keep you updated more often is also on our list :-)

Thijs