Hello
Here is what should happen. if you have registered all your paperwork in Orihuela, you go to your local health centre with your out of date Sip cards and all your stamped paperwork they should issue you with another temporaray SIP card for 6 months, sometimes I hate to say it, it's at the discretion of the centre. Here in Albatera it happens like this anyway.
You do this until you get your full cover and then you should be evntually issued with permanent SIP cards with no expiry date.
I say should loosely.
I had clients who thought the SIP cards they had, were expired due to the expiration of cover and the centre just renewed them, they were a bit peeved as they had just taken out health insurance to cover them until retirment.
Good luck and please let me know how you get on.
Sharon