I’ve had quite a few people ask how I was enjoying resting on Pregnancy Disability. While I’m grateful that California has this option open for myself and others, I haven’t had that many days of rest per se. Instead, I’ve been running around getting things ready for our baby at home and away. Some errands I’ve been able to complete relatively quickly, others took longer. One of my most recent ones, at a state disability office took most of one day. As I entered I saw they still had not fixed this sign on the door for the forms.
Some people choose to just drop off or mail in their forms and wait. However, I had not yet heard back on my paperwork, which I had dropped off in person when I started my disability leave, so I was going in person to get some concrete answers face to face.
Inside they have you take a number, yet, there were no numbers ready to be picked up.
A fellow SDI visitor assured me they were stuck inside the machine. I opened it up and sure enough they were, so I gave one to the person who had been there before me, took the next one, gave one to the person who’d come in after me and then set it up so others could just take a number.
Unfortunately, that was the last part of the visit that was easy. When I got to the window to see when my paperwork had been processed I was told that they didn’t have it. Literally there was no record of it having been received even though I had handed it to someone by hand. I was then directed to Window 1 to talk to a manger.
While at Window 1, the manager also confirmed they had no record of me handing it in. They checked by my name, my name for mispellings and even under my social security number and they found nothing. So I was asked if I had a hard copy of it.
Though they’d made me a copy I didn’t have one on me (I should have, but it never occurred to me that they’d somehow lose a form given to them in person to be sent from their office to their office in Sacramento. I was able to get Matt to send me a copy of the form via email, but policy wouldn’t let them take attachments.
So, I had to go to Matt’s job to get a copy – luckily they’d required him to scan in my form as part of the leave he is taking from his job. I went back and Matt said he’d join me after his job. I presented the form and it was stamped, as you can see this copy had the date I’d handed it in and now the stamp from the day I had to resubmit the form.
I was told it would be expedited by being entered that day as a special favor. I was told the forms were being processed all over the state, so it may or may not have been confirmed by the 2 p.m. roll out, or it might be processed by 5 that day. I said I would wait and check in at 2:30.
Soon Matt arrived and we waited together. Though the forms were not finished by the 2:30 roll out, the manager (who at this point I had talked with multiple times) gave us a form showing they had been entered and the first part, my information, would be matched up with the second part, the doctor’s information, as even though the form is submitted at the same time, they are treated separately. I was promised I would be called the next day to confirm they had been matched. At this point, I had spent the better part of the day at the office, so we took the paper and left, and by the next day the forms had been matched and confirmed.
In comparison, though I had to call around several offices to get appointments, and had one on one day and one on another, it was easy for us comparatively to get a car seat in both of our cars.
The first was at a California Highway Patrol Office and the second at a AAA office. In both cases, the seats were examined to make sure they were in good condition, checked that they were not part of a recall, then placed, then taken out as I (at the first appointment I went alone) or we (both of us at the second) were shown how to install them. For one car, it was placed in the middle of the backseat as the car did not have anchors, and in the other, our newer, it was placed behind the passenger seat. I took a few pics to demonstrate placement, and was not driving for these photos.
~ Danielle
Over 40 First Time Mom 