Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Amused... Confused...

So, I'm 10w5d preggers today.  I LOVE it.  I give three cheers to Jesus with each wave of nausea, as I feel like I'm actually having a 'normal' pregnancy.  Praise the Lord for exhaustion and sickness.  I truly love it.  There are so many who would give up all sleep forever, and all settled tummies to experience these things...and I am so blessed.  Thank you Jesus.

Oh how we pray for continued normalcy.  Although the concept of actually ever holding a new born, alive & responsive, is so beyond the limits of my mind...I am feeling some hope, a little hope, everyday.  And, again the unspeakable joy that overwhelms me.  I don't know where it comes from, and each time I try to calm myself and tell myself not to get too excited and to take it one day at a time...I just feel such a sense of peace from the Lord and a reassurance that He knows our heartache and He has given us this gift so that we can be joyous.

I applied for Medicaid right after we found out I was pregnant. In Florida, you have to do everything online (super frustrating).  It takes 30+ days to get a response.  Well, our response came last week, and we were denied Medicaid, but approved for medically needy.  Great, except that we have to rack up almost $3500 in medical bills EACH MONTH before they would help us pay for anything.  So, I go back online to review all the documentation...there were these mysterious numbers in their system for our income...I mean so mysterious and out of someone's mind.  Even when I added up all our monthly income it wasn't even close.  In fact, according to Medicaid we bring home about $8200 a month.  WOW!!!  Someone owes me some serious money!!!  I mean that is well over 3x's our monthly income.  My husband is in the ministry for goodness sakes and I work part-time!

Anyhow, because of this, today I went to the local Medicaid office.  I waited in line for 20 minutes, and was finally able to speak to a guy who wouldn't make eye contact, and seemed so squirmy.  After spilling all of my most personal information to him in the smelly, hot, over crowded 'office', I was told to call the Medicaid office to have my problem corrected.  So, I said "well, where am I?  Isn't this the Medicaid office?  Can't I just speak to someone while I'm here?"  To which he said, "Well, this is the medicaid office, but there is no one here who can help you and I don't know that much about medicaid."  And, I said, "but you work here, and this is the medicaid office."  "yes ma'am."  "but you can't help me?"  " no ma'am.  There are like 18 different types of medicaid and I don't know that much about them."  "but you work here at the medicaid office, and there is no one else who i can sit and talk to?"  "no ma'am, have you tried calling customer service?" "yes that's how I got your location and how I knew to come here."  Then, he hands me a business card with a phone number, which I called in the parking lot, and was pushed around a phone system and finally disconnected right after the robot voice told me to call the customer service number - which was the place I called last week that told me to go to the local office, - yeah the one where they hire people to work who don't know about medicaid.

I feel like a rat after some cheese in a maze, only there is no cheese...just cheese flavored air spray....

So, I submitted changes online and have to wait an additional 10+ days to hear if the changes make any difference in our determination of need.

Oh God grant me the serenity!!  It was really amusing seeing his face each time I asked if this was in fact the medicaid office.   Oh, little red headed medicaid man....you made me flustered and you made me laugh...nice.

6 comments:

Kelly said...

Keep the faith that your LO is ok in there! All the signs certainly are perfect!

And this Medicaid office bullshit is crazy!!

Unknown said...

"I feel like a rat after some cheese in a maze, only there is no cheese...just cheese flavored air spray..."

I am giggling like crazy over this. Just the imagery it gave in my head.

I can understand completely how that would be so frustrating with the whole Medicaid situation. Good luck with all of that!

MrsH said...

Oh, that is so screwed up! I really am glad to be in Canada from this point of view...

Katharine (LauraKat81) said...

haha, I totally wish I could have been there to see that conversation!

But I really do hope you get the insurance figured out...well I hope THEY get it figured out...whoever THEY might be since no one seems to know.

And glad to hear that everything is going so well. You're still in my prayers!

Lilly's Mom (Desiree) said...

Praying for you and your new little blessing!!!

amanda said...

Amanda,
If you continue to have trouble with medicaid via the regular routes, call IPOP. You make an appt., talk to a real person(face to face), and they take care of everything very quickly. It is also 3 months retroactive. I've never had any headaches or hoops to jump through with any of our experiences with them. I don't have your e-mail, so I will e-mail Donna with the number to call and name.
We are happy for you guys and expect great mercy from the Lord on your behalf. May HE be glorified! :) -Amanda