Small victories on the home stretch! (6 days till Bayta!)

Ok, so we are back from our last vacation as a family of four... (more on that later!) Today I got to the store feeling refreshed and ready to take on the day! It is nice to get out of the office now and again. Today I decided to make some calls to the hospital and our insurance company to make sure that everyone knows we are coming. Most of the questions I asked of the insurance company were answered with "NO."

Are breastpumps covered If prescribed by a doctor? No

What about housing? No

Calf implants for me so I can finally be the total package? NO

Psycho therapy for mom and dad since we have been dealing with non stop stress and worry for the last 7 months? NO

Wheel chair for Amanda so I can get her from Barnes Jewish Hospital to Bayta's bedside at Childrens after having major abdominal surgery? Nope.

The Dr's say she is gonna cost over a million dollars before she gets out of the hospital... if we can save you 10 percent of that amount can we get a discount in the hospital cafeteria? NO

It was a pretty one sided conversation. The only thing she did say we could get was a form to have a case manager assigned to us to help make sure that as little of the million dollars gets paid for with the children's college funds as possible. I know this does not sound like much but I have requested a case worker 3 times now and today with less than a week to go we finally got one step closer to getting it done.


I was feeling so good about life after my success with the insurance company, I decided to call a Children's hospital to see if there was any paperwork I could do ahead of time to make Amanda's ordeal any smoother. I got lucky once again and got ahold of a social worker gave me somre great advice. She also told me that it was possible to put our application in for the Ronald McDonald House on Thursday BEFORE Baytag gets here! Prior to today we had been told very specifically that we could only apply AFTER she was here. Because Monday was a scheduled delivery we get to put our application in 5 days early! That does not mean that we will get a room there, but we will be five days more likely to get a room. Who knows that may mean five fewer days of sleeping in the back of the van... or cruddy hotel, or hospital chair. Small victories are all we have these days, but they sure make you feel like you have accomplished something after months of feeling so contingent.