The Mom Crowd

Health insurance is a hot topic in the US right now.  While congress debates the topic, I thought I’d share an option some families have that many are unaware of to insure their children.  Most people are aware of Medicaid, a government run health care option for low income families.  Many people do not qualify for Medicaid due to the income and financial guidelines.  However, every state in the US has ”Medicaid Waivers” that allows certain individuals who do not qualify based on financial criteria to participate in Medicaid through these waiver programs.  Typically, for a child to qualify for Medicaid, the government will evaluate the family’s income and assets to determine eligibility.  Medicaid waivers evaluate the individual’s income and assets to determine eligibility and does not consider the parents’ income and assets.  In other words, my daughter qualifies for Medicaid through a waiver based on HER income and assets and our total family income and assets are not factored into her eligibility determination.  The waiver is offered to different populations of people.  Some state Medicaid waivers are offered to individuals based on their intelligience quotient.  Some state Medicaid waivers are offered to individuals based on their medical issues and health.

Every state is very different in how they run their Medicaid waiver programs and every state offers different benefits outside of Medicaid to their waiver participants.  So, to keep my dear readers from becoming too confused, I am going to share with you how one Texas Medicaid waiver works.  Keep in mind, in the state of Texas, there are actually many different waiver programs that all are slightly different from one another, however a basic understanding of one of these waivers will give you a general idea of how Medicaid waivers work.

My daughter is on the Medically-Dependent-Children’s-Program Medicaid Waiver (AKA: MDCP).  When she was a few months old, I put her on an interest list, which is basically a waiting list to be evaluated for eligibility for MDCP.  It was very easy to add her to the interest list and I called religiously every month to see where she was on the list.  A month before her third birthday, I received a phone call from MDCP stating my daughter had come up on the interest list.  We set up an evaluation in my home and she qualified for the MDCP Medicaid waiver due to her health issues and medications.  We chose to keep our primary health insurance for her and she started receiving Medicaid as a supplemental health insurance, so we no longer had to pay for her deductibles, co-pays, prescriptions, cost-shares, or any other health related expense.  Her MDCP Medicaid waiver also brought along several other benefits, including:

• MDCP pays a portion of our primary health insurance premium.  It is cheaper for Medicaid to be a supplemental health insurance, so as an incentive for us to keep her on our family’s primary health insurance, we are reimbursed a portion of our monthly premiums.
• MDCP provides respite.  Due to her health care needs, she needs to be left with caregivers who are aware of her health issues, medications, and special needs.  MDCP pays a person who we have hired to take care of my daughter in our home.  This has been a huge blessing for my family.  We were able to hire a person we trust to take care of her when we needed someone to watch her and are confident that if she needs any medical attention, that person will be able to take the proper steps necessary.
• Her waiver provides medical equipment and supplies that are not otherwise covered by health insurance.  My daughter is almost five and is still not potty trained.  Her waiver provides diapers and supplies for her.
• Her waiver provides transportation or mileage reimbursement for the many doctor and therapy appointments she has every week. 

A lot of states, but not all, have waiting lists for their Medicaid waiver programs.  To see what types of Medicaid waivers are offered in your state, click here: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MedicaidStWaivProgDemoPGI/08_WavMap.asp  When you click on your state, a list of waivers will pop up.  The state of Texas has 25 waiver programs.  You may need to scroll to another page to see all the waiver programs in your state.  When you select a program, you will have the option to download the very long and confusing program description.  I suggest, instead, contacting or looking up your state’s Department of Aging and Disabilities website to find more information (in layman’s terms) about your state’s waiver programs and process of applying.  Medicaid waivers can be very difficult to navigate, but very beneficial to families who have children with a lot of medical issues or families who need respite care due to their child’s higher level of needs.

August 1 – 7 is World Breastfeeding Week. The main purpose of WBW is promote breastfeeding in emergency situations worldwide.  An emergency can happen anytime and anywhere. They want to inform mothers, breastfeeding advocates, communities, health professionals, governments, aid agencies, donors, and the media on how they can actively support breastfeeding before and during an emergency.

WHY WORLD BREASTFEEDING WEEK 2009?

• Children are the most vulnerable in emergencies – child mortality can soar from 2 to 70 times higher than average due to diarrhea, respiratory illness and malnutrition.

• Breastfeeding is a life saving intervention and protection is greatest for the youngest infants. Even in non-emergency settings, non-breastfed babies under 2 months of age are six times more likely to die.

• Emergencies can happen anywhere in the world. Emergencies destroy what is ‘normal,’ leaving caregivers struggling to cope and infants vulnerable to disease and death.

• During emergencies, mothers need active support to continue or re-establish breastfeeding.

• Emergency preparedness is vital. Supporting breastfeeding in non-emergency settings will strengthen mothers’ capacity to cope in an emergency.

In every country around the world breastfeeding needs to be supported and promoted, especially areas where clean water is limited and government conflicts can create national emergencies. Infant mortality rates in time of crisis can be dramatically decreased if a baby who was breastfed can still be breastfeed. “Breastmilk is the one safe and secure source of food for babies, instantly available, providing active protection against illness and keeping an infant warm and close to his/her mother. During the first three months of conflict in Guinea-Bissau in 1998, the death rate amongst 9–20 month old non-breastfed children was six times higher than amongst the children of the same age-group who were breastfed.“ Even women who are HIV positive can still breastfeed.

“Once an emergency strikes, simple measures can make all the difference in the world to a mother caught up in it. Ensure  that mothers are secure, have priority access to food for the family, water, shelter, and when necessary, safe places to breastfeed (with privacy, where culturally required).”

When Katrina hit New Orleans access to clean water was limited, but mothers who breastfed could still breastfeed their infants. Then they were evacuated to shelters where breastfeeding may have been frowned upon, because it isn’t widely culturally acceptable here in the United States. I wonder if there were comfortable places made for women to nurse. I know I feel more comfortable nursing in private another room or using a nursing cover.

So what can you do to help promote breastfeeding in an emergency?

Be Prepared

• Exclusively breastfeed your baby until s/he is 6 months of age.  Continue to breastfeed your baby to 2 years or beyond.

• Encourage your local mother support group(s) to discuss emergency preparedness. For example, plan ways that the group could staff a safe place for mothers and provide mother-to-mother support to breastfeeding if large numbers of people are made homeless.

• Make contact with local emergency authorities and community groups and tell them about IFE.

During an Emergency

• Continue to practice optimal breastfeeding.

• Offer support to other mothers who are having difficulties or to mothers of newborns in an emergency.

• Consider wet nursing if needs are identified, e.g. orphans, very ill mothers.

• Help organise safe places for mothers with mother-to-mother support for breastfeeding.

Support from Afar

• Identify agencies that support breastfeeding in emergencies and fundraise for them.

*All the information in this blog post is from World Breastfeeding Week’s Action Folder. I would highly recommend downloading it and reading it.

How are you going to celebrate World Breastfeeding Week? I am going to keep nursing my 5 month old!

You can ad a twibbon to your twitter profile pic to show your support. http://twibbon.com/join/World-Breastfeeding-Week

Sponsor Saturdays is a new feature on The Mom Crowd. Each Saturday we will be highlighting one of our six sponsors.

***Keep reading all the way to the end to find out how you can win a BUD Luxury Duck or Little Honey 100% Natural Bug Repellent Band! *** 3 Winners! ***

Design Room Group is one of our newest sponsors on The Mom Crowd. They have the coolest rubber ducks and modern gear for children. Jenny Pithie is a mom to two beautiful girls, a wife to a nature loving husband and the owner of Designroom and Little Honey, modern products for kids and their parents. She was kind enough to do a Q & A with me about her store and her family.

Amanda: How did you come up with the concept for the Design Room Group?
Jenny: Design Room Group was formed to bring to the US great Australian designed children’s products.  My husband is Australian and I always find really cool stuff when we visit.  After the birth of my first child I noticed all the amazing kid’s products when we would visit and I decided to try to bring them to the US.  It has expanded over the years to include other products I like, but the main focus is Australian design and now our own label coming soon, which is Little Honey.  We continue to bring in some cool Australian products including great natural children’s skin and hair care coming soon.

A: What are your most popular products?
J: The ducks by far…we sell lots of our rubber duckies.  They are so cute, unique, fun and we have always been phthalate free and lead free so you know you are getting a quality product.  The gurgle pots are also a big hit.  Not only do they look great in your kitchen, but they are fun for kids.  When you pour the pitcher it makes this gurgling sound like a fish.  My daughter’s friends just crack up when they come over.  Lately, we have been selling heaps of the beach balls and swim rings.  They were featured in InStyle and Cookie which didn’t hurt!

A: Do you have any products that you wish people knew more about? If so, what are they?
J: Our 100% Natural Little Honey Bug Repellent Bands.  This is a super cool product that we developed with a leader in natural bug repellents.  They really work and they work well.  They have been tested by the Australian government and endorsed by the PGA.  We love them because they are so great for kids.  Just pop one on their wrist or ankle and they last for a full five days!  If you put them back in their reusable bag, they last even longer.  They stop releasing the natural vapors once they are put back in the bag!  The way they work is natural essential oils are injected into the plastic before molding the band.  Once the band is removed from the bag the natural oil vapors are released and form a “vapor barrier” within five feet of wherever they are placed.  Great for camping or just out for a walk.  My dad loves them for golfing or mowing the lawn and I always put one on the stroller or on the table outside when we are entertaining.  They smell like peppermint…no stinky smells, no toxic creams.

We love it too as we have just teamed up with Malaria No More and will be donating a portion of all sales to their cause.  A cause that is helping fight malaria, which kills a child every 30 seconds and is treatable and preventable, tragic.   As a mom, it breaks my heart to think how these other moms must feel to watch their children suffer, I knew we had to try to help.

A: Your products have been featured in many magazines. Which magazine feature are you most proud of?
J: I was super excited about the Elle Magazine spread as it was our first major publication and I had been working tirelessly to try to get the business going, so it felt good that we were being recognized by such an awesome publication.  I also love whenever we are in Cookie, because I think they are the best kids magazine out there and love that they love our stuff.

A: Finally, you are the mother of 2 daughters, what advice would you give to new moms?
J: Relax.  As much as you want everything perfect for your precious little ones, you can’t do everything and the most important thing is just spending quality time with them.  Everyone tells you they grow up in a flash and they are not kidding.  Recently I went to the graduation at my daughter’s preschool and her whole little life flashed in front of my eyes..and it wasn’t even her graduation! So, enjoy every minute of it!

***Enter to WIN a BUD Luxury Duck OR Little Honey 100% Natural Bug Repellent Band *** 3 Winners! *** Now Closed

Jenny has generously offered to giveaway 2 BUD Luxury Ducks and 1 Little Honey 100% Natural Bug Repellent Band!  All you have to do to enter is go to Design Room Group’s website, pick your favorite duck design, and come back here and write in the comments of this post which is your favorite design! Winners will be chosen at random and announced next Saturday morning on Aug. 8th. Good luck!
WINNERS!

I used Random.org to choose the winners of the giveaway.

Winner of the first BUD Luxury Duck is… Lindsay!

Winner of the second BUD Luxury Duck is… Trina!

Winner of the Little Honey 100% Natural Bug Repellent Band is… Jenn!

Thank you to everyone who entered! Be sure to check out our next giveaway – a Madeline Baby Sling OR Nursing Cover from Tot-to-Go!

My favorite book on parenting is Finding Your Purpose as a Mom by Donna Otto.  I bought this book at Borders one afternoon while browsing around, shortly after my oldest child was born.  It stayed on my bookshelf for about a year, until spring 2007, when I had extra room in my schedule and my mind to take it all in.  Over the past two years, I have read and re-read this excellent book, and endeavored to put many of Ms. Otto’s tips into practice.

Finding Your Purpose as a Mom is filled with practical ideas.  I love Ms. Otto’s chapters on keeping the home in order, maintaining peaceful relationships with family members and friends, and making the house a welcoming, inviting home.  But beyond the practicality of her ideas lies chapter after after chapter about envisioning the future for your family – having an idea of how you’d like your kids to grow up, and living intentionally to seek after those goals.

My favorite application in this regard is listing qualities I’d like to see in my children as they grow older.  When I first read the book, I made a list of 10 for my daughter, and put it on my nightstand as a reminder of my overarching purpose as Lucy’s mother.  Here are three of Ms. Otto’s many examples:

• I want [my home] to grow a man or woman of prayer.
• I want [my home] to grow a person of character and integrity.
• I want [my home] to grow a culturally discerning person.

I love the author’s gentle insight.  She is older than me (probably older than my mom), yet her wisdom doesn’t seem dated.  Rather, it’s timeless.  She shares many stories from her own parenting experiences – successes and failures – to flesh out her advice, and she is encouraging to her readers in such an inspiring way that I feel refreshed after consuming any chapter.  It moves me to action.

If you are needing some inspiration or advice amidst this vast and tiring career called motherhood, Finding Your Purpose as a Mom is an encouraging “shot in the arm”.  Donna Otto’s book Secrets to Getting More Done in Less Time is also great – an in-depth outline of her specific strategies for organization of home life.  Both of these books would make great gifts, too – especially for a new mom.

What unconventional parenting books have made a difference in your life?  Do share!  And have a great weekend, Mom Crowd!

Being a mommy is great, but feeling pretty all the time for our men isn’t always easy. I have a wonderful friend, named Beth, who is pregnant with her third baby.  She is due any day now and sent me a comical story that actually happened to her just a few days ago.  I thought it was a humorous look at some of the things we do to make ourselves feel pretty.  I asked her to be a guest writer for this week and share her story with us.

I’ve known Beth for over 10 years now.  We lived together for two years in the late 90′s before my husband and I got married. Beth is an amazing woman.  She is honest, loving, authentic, and the kind of person who makes you feel safe to open up to.    Her children are fortunate to have such a great woman as a mother.

Here is a little about Beth:

My name is Beth Hernandez. I live in San Antonio, TX with my husband and three children, ages 5 (son), 2 (daughter), and soon to be born son! In general, I am what many would consider an extreme extravert, though God seems to be balancing that more lately. Though my husband and I feel most at home when our house is filled with people and our schedule is busy, we have learned to set a few emotional boundaries to keep our health and relationships stable! By trade I am a secondary Math, Science, and English teacher. Currently I am a homemaker who tries to keep her toe in the broader Education field through tutoring and short term, very part time contracted teaching positions (like a summer program called Jumpstart through the University of Texas system or some private school affairs). I home school my oldest kids, which is great fun! I love to read and share what I’ve read with others. I enjoy writing, and I am learning to share that with others. My husband and I are an active part of our church community.

Confessions about being 9 months pregnant and waxing…

Some ideas are better left un-tried when one is 9 months pregnant. Case in point: waxing one’s belly. Background on this adventure may or may not be necessary, but just in case, when I was in my early and mid twenties, I thought it extremely important to have as little body hair as possible. The reason for this is that one never knew when one would meet the man of her dreams, and potentially run away to get married very spontaneously, or if one would find herself in the hospital stripped to her undies for some terrible surgery situation wishing all that hair wasn’t so thick and exposed. (By the way this is the same logic for wearing matching bra and underwear sets!) An added bonus for hair removal was that I was always prepared for spontaneous swimming situations (though I can’t recall if those ever really happened spontaneously). So I engaged in the painful ritual of waxing certain “bikini” areas when necessary. I’m sure I had a formal process for this feat, though it eludes me at present.

The truth about getting married—even if one does run away to Lake Tahoe very spontaneously to do so—is that eventually one falls into a comfortable routine with her dear husband. This is especially true after having children. Now please don’t interpret this as not looking my best for my husband; I continue to make the effort to be as beautiful as possible for him. Realistically though, as the budget got tighter, things like waxing gave way to razors for cost purposes, and some days making the extra effort to remove all the hair was not as important as taking time to deal with the emotional and spiritual needs of my young children and actively loving my husband in many good ways. I also began to realize, in the particular case of my own husband, that my hair removal process on the whole was more for my security and self image than his pleasure.

Having exposed all that, I come to today. Today, I am 39 and ½ weeks pregnant with our third child. My belly is extended farther than I care to describe. I have been bemoaning the hair on the lower section of my belly since it fell exposed under my maternity blouse to my 2 and ½ year old daughter when she ran to hug me last week. She said it was “pokey” when her cheek rubbed against said belly. I’m not sure that this “pokey” hair is terribly noticeable to the average adult, but small children “tell it like it is,” and I felt that shaving was just too dangerous a venture at this point (due to limited visibility and coordination—which may have been a good reason to forgo the waxing, as well). So when I went to Target today, to buy a few household items, I stopped in the beauty section to find some wax. I decided I owed this “indulgent luxury” to myself. It had been about 5 years since I subjected myself to the torture, and had clearly forgotten the painful process.

Tonight, after everyone in the house was asleep, I removed the wax and sticks and directions from the package. I read them carefully, noticing it was not exactly as I remembered, but things change some in 5 years. I microwaved the wax container for 30 seconds, which should have deterred me then and there. Our microwave does not like certain items (like butter, and apparently wax). I had to flee the kitchen for fear of my life as what seemed like lightning bolts erupted inside the 15 year old monster microwave. When the timer beeped, I tiptoed back into the kitchen, carefully opened the door, and pulled out my wax. It seemed the right consistency, so I continued with the process.

Back in the bathroom, I set up a mirror on the toilet seat, so I could see the underside of my belly, and began applying the sticky goop in the direction of hair growth. My first mistake was probably spreading the wax on too thickly. My second mistake was leaving the box of fabric strips on the floor. When I leaned over to grab one, my belly stuck to my leg, the wax container fell to the floor, and the spreading stick began to drip all over the toilet seat. As I pulled my leg painfully off my belly, I began to laugh, realizing this is the stuff sitcoms are made of: images of “I love Lucy” and “Anne of Green Gables” dancing in my head. My dear husband sat up in bed at this point to see what on earth was causing me to make such a racket! He rolled his eyes when he saw me and lay back down probably wondering about his choice in women.

Determined, I continued in this venture. I stuck the fabric strips on my belly and pulled. OUCH…OUCH…OUCH! The great unfortunate point here was, again, mistake number one: I spread the wax on thickly. I succeeded in removing no hair but still subjecting my belly to deep pain. (Which by the way should have put me into labor, but I am under the firm suspicion that this baby is too wise to the outside world and has decided he’d rather spend his days warm, well fed, and safe in his current cramped quarters!) I tried again with new strips, only to realize that though I was raw, I still had hair because I had pulled the strips in the wrong direction! Here, wisdom entered my heart and I decided to give up this disastrous adventure. Sadly, mistake number two came back to bite me. Along with the fabric strips, the “soothing oil” was on the floor in the box. I can’t tell you how many places I had wax after finally getting the little bottle from the floor. I might have saved myself the trouble. The oil did not do a great job of removing all the sticky wax from my body (see mistake number one). Between the failed waxing job and scrubbing frantically all over with soap and a scrubby after applying the oil, I am now raw and hairy and unsure of why we subject ourselves to such torture as women…I don’t think I’ll attempt waxing again, unless I can afford a professional and some REALLY GREAT WINE!

Thanks for reading my confession…I felt keeping it to myself would only be self indulgent.

–Beth Hernandez

Okay Mom Crowd, Welcome Beth this week and share some of your stories that happened to you!