Ruby was born in Taiwan and has dual citizenship from her parents, but the US does not know of her existence until we register her birth with American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) (more details in this post). Since her dad is American and mom is Taiwanese, her English last name follows her dad and her Mandarin last name is with me. The rest of the post is about the process to acquire an English birth certificate with a different name from the translated Chinese name.

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For a new mom, pregnancy and labor were difficult but there were lots of resources. Labor was a lot of pain, but it went by fast at least. On the other hand, breastfeeding was the most challenging part of motherhood in the first few weeks for me. I thought I had read a bunch and attended classes at the hospital during pregnancy, but in reality, it took so many days and nights with tears and stress to get the hang of it. Every woman has her own journey, and I’d just like to share mine in case it might help anyone with similar struggles.

I keep updating the post as long as I am breastfeeding, so far three months in!

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