My insurance woes continue.

They sent us two letters in the mail this week.

One listed Tyler, Amy, Rosie, and Ada as covered by insurance from September 17th, 2012 to January 1st, 2013.  (Yay!!)

The second letter listed Tyler, Amy, Rosie, and Ada as covered by insurance from January 2013 to January 2014.  (More yay!)

Tyler called them to double check that my issues had been resolved since they never gave him the confirmation phone call they’d promised.  The lady on the phone said yes, Amy is listed as covered on the insurance policy, there should be no further issues.

So I called the OB’s office and made an appointment, and I also asked them if they would call in a prescription for Zofran.  The nurse said she would call it in, awesome!

With Tyler’s insurance policy we can only get prescriptions filled at the Toyota pharmacy inside the plant, or at a participating Walmart or Walgreens location.  I don’t love Walmart because it’s such a pain to try and get in and out of the store, but not that of a big deal, whatever.  I will miss getting my prescriptions from the place with the drive-thru though.  (Walgreen’s isn’t close to our house, we never go there.)  I told the nurse to call the prescription into the Walmart 5 minutes from our house.

I was feeling really, really sick yesterday.  Like I couldn’t move or sleep because I would start gagging.  Gross.  When Tyler got up he ran to Walmart to pick up the prescription. He called me a few minutes later and told me that Walmart found that I had no health insurance so the Zofran (off brand) was $135.  Tyler was extremely angry.  Once again we’re paying for my insurance, they reassure us we have insurance, and I am not covered?  How long can this go on??

He came storming home and called Mercer for the thousandth time.  The person checked her computer and said that I was listed as covered but she would check into it further. After a long time on hold she came back and said that they had me listed as covered but they hadn’t forwarded the changes to the EZ-script people who are in charge of prescriptions.

I’m not kidding guys, these people are not competent and on the phone they act like they are so annoyed with us when we’ve done everything they’ve asked.  Incredibly frustrating.  We’re always nice to customer service workers on the phone because usually it’s not the fault of the person you’re talking to, but the people at Mercer are the rudest customer service people we’ve ever come across!  I don’t know why.  The only way to get them to do anything is to not be nice, or hang up and call back until you get someone helpful.  We did talk to one lady at some point who was very friendly and apologetic, but the other 4,021 calls were not friendly people.  Argh.  Some of them point blank refused to help and said there was no one higher up we could talk to in order to resolve our issues!  Is that not their job?!?

Now we’re waiting for them to add me to the prescription coverage on the health plan.  They said it normally takes 1-2 weeks but when Tyler was completely irate and told them I had prescriptions I needed the guy said he would be able to mark it as urgent and then it should only take 24-48 hours.  We’ll see.  Tyler’s going to call them again today when he gets up to see if they’ve fixed it or not.

It should not be this hard!!

I’m not feeling nearly as sick today, thankfully.  But I still feel pretty gross overall.  Blah.  I’m thrilled to be pregnant, but I just can’t believe I’m pregnant NOW of all times.  First trimester, the sickest most miserable weeks over Christmas?  When I’ve been looking forward to enjoying Igor and Christmas festivities.  I kind of just want to cry.  Maybe that’s from my raging hormones.

Only ONE WEEK until Igor comes.  I’m still super excited! I’m nervous too because I’ve never had a little boy before.

Tanya, despite her special needs, fit right in with the gender aspect.  I didn’t feel weird about her jumping in our bed and sleeping with us half clothed, or Ada walking around half naked as toddlers are prone to do.  Tanya was happy to wear pink and paint finger nails, draw pictures of hearts and rainbows, and all that girl stuff I’m used to.  Boys are a different world!  Will he like to cuddle the same as little girls?  I wonder what he’ll like to play…if he knows how to play with toys.  I told Ada she has to start wearing pants and underwear when Igor is here, haha.

I’m also nervous about my dogs.  They make so much chaos, especially when they aren’t used to a new person and they’re all excited.

I have to super clean my house before Igor gets here.  I did it before Tanya’s arrival too. I refer to it as orphan nesting.  It’s especially messier than usual now since I’ve been feeling sick and tired for a few weeks and slacking a little.  I will have to suck it up when Igor is here because I don’t want him to come to a dirty home.  The orphanage is a very strict and sparse place.  I know a small house full of family and pets is overwhelming.

Can’t wait to meet my little boy!  I hope the week left goes by fast and I don’t feel too sick on Thursday when we’re going to pick him up.  My mom is going to go with me to help out.  My mother-in-law is watching the girls.  (She usually takes Rosie to dance class on that night anyway.)  They’ve put me in charge of coordinating all the families arriving to pick up their kids at the Louisville airport.  Eeek!  :)  I like the responsibility of being in charge, it keeps me distracted from being nervous, even though I’m shy and hate talking to strangers…I’m learning to get over it.

I’ll be seven weeks pregnant tomorrow.  That means as of tomorrow one week and five days until my appointment, during which I will beg for an ultrasound.  After the ultrasound I’ll feel really pregnant, or know that this isn’t working out and to not get my hopes up.  Luckily time seems to be flying!

Just wanted to post a quick note to say that I realized my email was listed as amy at halfheardinthestillness.com.  If you’ve ever emailed me there I never saw it. I have no clue how to check that email, I’ve never used it before. It was just a default setting or something.

My real email is amyamosphotography at gmail dot com.  I will be honest and say I totally suck at replying to emails. I read them all and appreciate them, but I’m so overwhelmed with real life–homeschooling, children, etc.–that I lack the brainpower and time to consistently reply.  Sad, I know, but promise it’s not on purpose.  Maybe it will be easier if Ada ever starts sleeping soundly.

We’re on Week 2 of homeschooling for first grade and it’s going pretty well!

I’m not going to lie–it’s certainly *not* easy to find time to do “school” and still keep up with housework, plus taking care of the kids and pets.  On top of that we are getting ready to put our house on the market, packing up everything besides the bare bones essentials, painting, etc.  I am so busy!

Several people asked me what kind of homeschooling we’re doing and why we homeschool.

Why we homeschool is a question that could have multiple answers.  Contrary to some homeschooling families I think the biggest reason is FREEDOM.  My kids are free to explore what interests them.  They are free to be themselves without being bullied, without being trapped in a building with 1,000 of their closest peers all day, every day.  I’m free to be their parent without having to negotiate with a school system, without having to deal with a frazzled teacher lacking in compassion.

The second reason we homeschool is…morals? This reason is a little more difficult to explain.  It’s not because I want my children to be sheltered, but simply because I enjoy spending time with them and want to invest time in nurturing them, not just educating them. There’s no reason they need to grow up too quickly.  Childhood goes by fast enough.  Now is my chance to help them learn right from wrong, to share wisdom, and to hopefully impress upon them how to be compassionate human beings.

We are Christian, but that’s not why we homeschool.  I’m teaching Rosie about both evolution and creationism.  We have the opportunity to discuss what our family believes, different dating methods, the findings of science, and what other people believe.  We do read the children’s Bible as part of our daily studies.  We’re also currently studying vikings, including Norse gods.

One thing I especially love about homeschooling is that my children are part of the world now.  They won’t go to school for 12 years waiting to graduate and go out into the big world.  They can venture out into the big world bit by bit as they grow and mature throughout childhood.  They can live their lives now, not trudge through their school years looking forward to finally graduating and being free.  They are already free!

Of course people *love* to judge homeschooled kids.  It’s kind of laughable to me, honestly.  For every person who has said something like, “I knew this one homeschooled kid who was weird…”  I say to them, “I went to public school and I knew this whole group of kids who were really weird and had no social skills…”

Oh but what about this one homeschooled kid someone knows who didn’t do well in college?  Hrm.  I am on Facebook.  Let me tell you how many of my peers from public high school did well in college, graduated, and now have successful careers.  Uh, yeah…try not to laugh.

And hello?  My kid does have friends and she is perfectly social.  I don’t understand what people think we do.  She doesn’t sit in a basement with no windows reading bible passages for all her waking hours.  She plays with the kids on our street.  She goes to dance class and homeschool co-op.  At co-op she takes three classes and has play time with about 25 other five and six year old’s.  We also participate in group field trips and play dates with other homeschooling families in our area.  I was going to sign her up for Girl Scouts but I don’t think we have time for it right now, we’ve got too much other stuff going on. The homeschooling community in our area is very active and growing!

She also knows the tellers at the bank, the cashiers and baggers at the grocery store, and the greeter at Walmart.  She’s able to politely greet them and have a conversation with them.  Most of them know her by name.

When people say, “How will she EVER be socialized?!?” they must mean, “How will she ever learn what it’s like to be bullied and judged by your clothing!”  Sorry guys, but I kind of hope she never learns that.

This is not all written to say that every kid who goes to public school is bad, or that it’s the wrong choice.  Hi, I’m not ignorant.  Obviously every family can’t stay home, some parents are not cut out to homeschool, some kids need special services that trained staff at school provide, and so on.  But for us?  Homeschooling is great and we love it.

I *have* to give a list of reasons we homeschool because it’s sometimes exhausting.  I need to remember why I chose this!

And also because I’m not sending my kid to public school.  If I’m not sending my kid to school then of course you would have the right to demand why…?  Is this an unwritten rule?  (Speaking about people in real life, not so much on the internet where it’s more normal to discuss these things.)  I’ve never asked someone who sends their kids to regular schools why they aren’t homeschooling, but everyone feels they have to ask why my kids aren’t going to the local school.  Then–oh, oh this is my FAVORITE part– they get defensive when I talk about it while answering their questions.

It used to bother me.  Now I think it’s really, really funny because I have a list of sound reasons why we personally chose to homeschool, and I’m happy with it.  Somehow in people’s brains this translates into me thinking they are doing something wrong…if only they knew!  I am so busy trying to be a wife, a mother, a teacher, and myself that I absolutely do not have time to analyze or judge another family’s school choices.  Why would I want to do that in the first place?  The world is not black and white.  Just because I am pleased with the choices we made (and we damn better well be pleased with them, we chose this path after all!) does not mean that we despise every other option.

That’s a stream of thought answer to why we homeschool.  We homeschool for a multitude of reasons, but mostly because it’s really cool to hang out with your kids and learn new stuff right along with them!

See the next entry for info about what type of homeschooling we are doing!

I read this article today while eating breakfast.  It’s about how India has hope in the stalled fight against polio.

It’s about how the oral polio vaccine is cutting down on the number of cases, though they still cannot seem to fully eradicate polio in the poorest of areas.  When casually reading the article it leaves you thinking, why yes this vaccine is life saving.  Thank goodness they have something to stop polio, thank goodness someone is out there vaccinating the poor!

But then I was chewing my cereal and I realized, like many vaccine related topics, there’s a carefully masked second side to the story…the logical side, unfortunately.

First of all, why do these children have to be vaccinated so many times against the same disease?  I understand there are different strains of polio and they have updated/improved the vaccine, but not 50 times!  Why did none of the 12 times the 3 year old was vaccinated work?  Surely she couldn’t have had diarrhea all 12 times she was vaccinated.

“Lalti Kumari, a shy 3-year-old, limps alongside her grandmother. She had been vaccinated 12 times, but still caught the disease in March 2009, likely because malnourishment or diarrhea made the doses ineffective.

“I don’t know how it happened,” said her mother, Sharmila Devi.”

“Rajkishore Tanti, a 45-year-old who estimates his two children were vaccinated roughly 50 times each, said the eradication program is the only government service that reaches the village.”
First of all, why do these children have to be vaccinated so many times against the same disease?  I understand there are different strains of polio and they have updated/improved the vaccine, but not 50 times!  Why did none of the 12 times the 3 year old was vaccinated work?  Surely she couldn’t have had diarrhea all 12 times she was vaccinated.  If the area is so poor, why do they waste money vaccinating and re-vaccinating against the same disease?  The article even comments on one huge factor that went into eradicating polio in the USA…

“As contact with polio-laced sewage became less frequent, people no longer contracted the disease in early infancy, when side effects were rare.”

Yet Bill Gates is spending $102 million dollars vaccinating these poor areas against polio, over and over?  Do you realize how much money $102 million dollars is for a dirt poor Indian village?  Think what all $102 million could buy!

Bill Gates has the power to buy them fresh water wells.  He can set up a clinic, one that keeps the oral re-hydration solutions and zinc to treat the diarrhea that supposedly interferes with vaccines.  He can have a huge impact on the lives of these people.  He could help build outhouses or some way to treat sewage, since polio is spread through feces.

Oh and want to know my favorite part?  They are giving these children the oral polio vaccine.  This is the version of the vaccine that contains the live virus, which means the children who get the vaccine shed live polio virus in their poop.

Now follow my logic: They are giving the live polio virus in an area where the article says children poop by the side of the road, an area so poor they don’t even have a ball to play with, let alone a place to wash their hands.  An area so poor that the people are constantly ill, they have poor immune systems due to lack of nutrition and sanitation.  WHY would they give these people a vaccine that is not to be used around people with a compromised immune system?  It is possible for others to catch polio from those that have been vaccinated!

In the United States when they used to give the oral polio vaccine some people would get the disease from it.  You weren’t supposed to be around any cancer patients or those with weak immune systems for an extended period of time after being vaccinated for that very reason.

It makes great sense to give this vaccine to the unhealthy poor, those who will be spending time all around the poop of vaccinated children sheding the live virus.

So instead of improving their quality of life with nutrition and medical care, Bill Gates wastes money vaccinating the same poor, rural population…the same kids 50 times.

The villagers even question this!  It says so in the article.

“Villagers complain that the vaccinators are the only health workers they ever see. One asked why they didn’t bring other medicine; another demanded clean drinking water.”

“If the road department, the electricity department, all the other government departments functioned like this polio campaign, our plight would be over,” he said.”

So…why?  Why does Bill Gates not spend some of that $102 million on something more logical, on a long term solution that would impact the lives of these people?

I’m sure Bill Gates realizes that infectious diseases will always be present in groups of people who don’t have the proper nutrition and health care to maintain strong immune systems.

Why wouldn’t he then spend money on helping these people build stronger immunity with nutrition, sanitation, vitamins, food, and clean water?  Then more people would be able to fight off all kinds of diseases, not just polio.

There has to be a good reason, right?  I honestly don’t know what that reason is.  I suspect it has a lot to do with Bill Gates’ ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

Today we tried to get Rosie a replacement social security card, because her other card has disappeared. 

I keep all of our social security cards together in our file folder of important papers in an envelope, but somehow Rosie’s isn’t there anymore.  Neither of us can remember taking it out, and a crazy search of every nook and cranny in the entire house turned up nothing.  I just saw it last year when I had to get out Tyler’s social security card.  Mystery where it could have gone!

We need her social security card so I can sign Ada up for whatever insurance the government offers.  They told me I can’t just apply for coverage for Ada, I have to provide documentation for every member of our family and apply for all of the benefits they offer instead of just the insurance coverage.

And…the reason we need insurance for Ada in the first place is due to the fact that our crappy insurance company refused to automatically add her to our plan because she was born at home.  We couldn’t provide her birth certificate and social security number in the 30 day window they gave us, because she was born at home it took until June for us to get her social security card and birth certificate in the mail!  She was born in April.  We had to present proof of her live birth and be approved by a certain woman in the vital statistics office, then wait for her to fill out paper work, then wait for her to send it to the correct departments, etc.  The government is slow!  If you have a baby in the hospital this is all automatically done for you…

So Ada has no health insurance until we can get Rosie’s social security card, or until July when our insurance will add her during open enrollment.

I looked up the info needed to get Rosie a new copy of her card.  This is what the site says:

To get a replacement card, you will need to:

• Complete an Application For A Social Security Card (Form SS-5);
• Present a recently issued document to show your identity;
• Show evidence of your U.S. citizenship if you were born outside the United States and did not show proof of citizenship when you got your card; and
• Show evidence of your current lawful noncitizen status if you are not a U.S. citizen.

Your replacement card will have the same name and number as your previous card.

That sounds simple enough, right?

So we took her birth certificate and went to the office.

First of all, the waiting room was packed full of people…people that looked like they slept on a park bench last night.  It stunk like urine and smoke.  We took a number and waited half an hour.

Finally they called our number.  The lady was so rude.  She said that a birth certificate is not enough identification, anyone can get a birth certificate she said.  She did verify that Rosie’s social security number matched her name in their government database, but that wasn’t good enough either.  She gave us this list of things we can provide to show proof.  Apparently we need an immunization record, a hep. B vaccination record from her birth, the hearing test record from her newborn screen, records from her daycare, records from her school, school ID, or her health insurance card as long as it wasn’t state health insurance.

I had her health insurance card in my bag, out in the car.  Could she wait a second while I ran to grab it?  No, no of course not.  We had to go get it, which took one second because we were parked right by the door, and then take another number and wait in that disgusting waiting room for another half an hour for them to call our number again.

When it was our turn we presented the health care card with Rosie’s name on it. 

Sorry, that’s not enough information.

It didn’t have her birthday.  See, the list there says items must have the birthday on them.  The copy she gave us was so faint that we couldn’t hardly read it and had missed that statement. She told us to come back with one of the other items on the list that includes her birthday and full name.

Great.

What a waste of my afternoon!

I don’t know what to do now. 

Rosie isn’t vaccinated, so she has no immunization record or Hep. B record.  She doesn’t go to daycare or to school, so she has no records or ID. Her health insurance card isn’t sufficient apparently.  That leaves the newborn hearing test record…I wonder if I can find that?  I hope it has her birthday on it.  If it doesn’t, then what do I do?

I’m really paranoid now–if we lose Ada’s social security card she’ll never get another!  She didn’t have the newborn screening because she wasn’t born in a hospital.  She has absolutely none of the things on that list for proof.

I’m so frustrated with governments and insurance companies and all of this red tape.  Why does everything have to be so incredibly drawn out and difficult?  If only I had my babies in the hospital, then my paperwork would be instantly done for me and the insurance company wouldn’t have to be difficult.  If only I vaccinated my kids and sent them to daycare or school, then I would have lots of records to provide the government…

Humph.

PS:

5/365

My girls in the cool morning light filtering in the bedroom window, right before leaving for the social security office.

My dog Hank is something special.

He’s an American Foxhound.  We got him from the shelter when Rosie was a baby.  He was biding his time, just about out of days until…you know.  The shelter warned us not to adopt him because he was a handful.

Apparently he escaped one day and ran out of the automatic doors, down a busy four lane road, and no one could catch him.  They gave up.  A few hours later he came right back in through the automatic doors and went back to his cage.  He was given up for adoption at two years old because his owner could no longer handle his antics.

Tyler insisted that we *needed* this dog.  We didn’t own any pets except for my Gus cat.  He swore he would take care of the dog, just like a begging little kid.  I gave in, and so we brought him home.  His name was Muttley, but we quickly renamed him Hank, which came with all kinds of funny names like Hankity Spank.

He was a bad dog.  A loving, adorable, floppy eared, bad dog.  He ripped all of the screens out of the windows one day when we left him outside.  He flipped over his wire crate and busted the top off then ran through the house destroying.  He ripped all of the clothes off of the hangers in the closet and then pooped on them.  He jumped up and knocked me over.  He used his mouth to pull on my shirt and ripped my clothes.  When walking him on a leash I had to grip parked cars and passing trees in order to not fall flat on my face.

He was so terrible!  And then he laid his big huge hound head in my lap and wagged his tail.

I thought about getting rid of him, but I couldn’t do it.

Instead I made the best of him–trained him to sit.  Trained him to lay down to get attention instead of jumping.  Perfected his potty habits so that they only happened outdoors.  It took lots of work.  Tyler didn’t help me, either!  When I dedicate myself to something I stick with it, no matter what.  See it through to the bitter end…or happy ending…

Today Hank is a good boy, mostly…he doesn’t tear stuff up except if he’s alone with the trash.  He’ll counter surf and eat what he can find too–his favorite thing is a banana, he’ll eat the entire bunch including the peel.  It’s a hound thing though, he’s very food motivated.  He can’t help it.  He’s sorry, you can tell by the look on his face.  Silly beast.

He’s laying his big head in my lap right now while I’m writing this.

Last summer we got new neighbors.  A recently divorced middle aged lady and her two sons.  They moved here from New York because her sons are going to our local university.  They have a funny dog named Rosie!  Rosie Dog is a mix between a Basset Hound and a St. Bernard.

For some reason the new neighbor lady loved Hank.  She started feeding my dogs those giant milk bones over the fence.

Abby, my black lab mix, wasn’t really phased.  She likes food but it doesn’t rule her world.

Hank, on the other hand…hounds can be completely controlled with food!  Hank loved the treats so much that he decided he had to beg for them.  First he would run over to that corner of the yard and do this horrible howl/bark/yelp nose non-stop any chance he got.  If I was busy with the baby then he would keep doing it until the neighbor came out and praised him and gave him a treat.  That annoyed me, because it was reinforcing his bad behavior, but I figured it wasn’t that big of a deal in the long run.

Then it escalated.

Hank realized he could climb over the fence and go to the neighbor’s door and beg for treats.

It happened several times and I felt terrible that my dog had escaped and begged at her door.  We tried to only let him out when we were watching, but that’s hard to do with kids to take care of.  So we ended up getting him a chain.  He only goes outside to take care of business, so it’s not like he’s chained for long amounts of time or anything.  Not too bad.  Occasionally we’d leave him out on the chain to lay in the sun on a nice day.  He is a dog after all, he enjoys laying out in the yard and smelling the wind, or treeing squirrels…

One day we came home and he’d hung himself over the fence while on the chain, trying desperately to reach the neighbor.  Luckily the chain was long enough that he was standing on the ground, just trapped against the fence.  I’m telling you, hounds will do absolutely anything for food!  During this time the neighbor was continuing to reward him with treats over the fence…

Now it’s gotten even worse.  The ground keeps freezing, and the chain has lost under mud and snow.  Half of the time it’s iced to the ground.  I let the dogs out and stand in the door way watching them until they come back in.  Sometimes Rosie will accidentally let Hank out, or I’ll get distracted from watching him, or Tyler will let him out and not say anything, and Hank immediately hops the fence and goes to the neighbors house.

I am so frustrated with her right now.  Hank paces my front window and door trying to get out to go to her house!  When he does manage to get out I panic that he’s been hit by a car or something.  We’ve spent hours looking for him only to find out that he’s in the neighbor’s house.  She lets him in!

One day I tried to talk to her about it and she asked me if she could have him.  As in, keep my dog.  Uh, no!

She asked me a second time, when I tried to talk to her about the issue again, if she could have him.  She wants my dog!  She told me the reason he runs away is because we don’t walk him enough.  Yep, I don’t walk him much in cold weather and not as often as I’d like in warm weather.  I have two kids…I’m doing the best I can.

AND the reason he runs away is not because he isn’t walked enough.  We play with him all day, feed him treats and scraps, love on him, he plays chase and ball.  He’s not neglected.  He climbs the fence only because she trained him to do it by rewarding his bad behavior!

Besides, if she really cared and wanted to help then why doesn’t she offer to walk him?  She walks her dog twice a day.  Instead she keeps locking my dog in her house…

Funny side note–during that second conversation she also accused my cat of eating her chipmunks.  She hand feeds them peanuts, but one day they disappeared.  Hahaha.

Today Tyler put Hank outside because he kept throwing up.  (Silly hound beast ate something bad, of course.)  I was asleep and didn’t realize.  A few hours later I noticed he wasn’t asleep in his dog bed like I’d assumed.  He was in the neighbor’s house, in her kitchen, laying on his own dog bed eating a huge $15 rawhide bone.

I just don’t know what to do.  Before she moved in he never climbed the fence.  He might hop over it occasionally and come around to the front door, but he didn’t take off.  He only did that a couple of times in his life.  Now he will go over the fence any chance he gets.  He’s desperate to get to her house, and even though she hears us outside calling for him she doesn’t give him back.  She keeps him until we knock on the door.

It’s kind of weird and really awkward.  Who takes someone’s dog?

She really loves him.  I think she’s just a lonely single middle aged lady, it’s nothing with ill-intent.  It’s just frustrating that she’s trained my hound beast to come to her house.  It causes me lots of extra stress and I don’t know what to do!

I’m considering getting him a shock collar, but that seems so mean.  The chain is only semi-effective at keeping him in.  I can’t afford a taller fence.

I acknowledge that it’s partly my fault because he’s my dog and he’s escaping my yard, but what do you do when someone else keeps luring your dog over the fence?

:(