SAHP's Using Public Assistance - Page 19

[Ianthe]

Well, I am in the process of trying to get on food stamps now. It is HARD, actually. DH is unemployeed.. has been trying to find a job for about 8 month now.. besides a few temp-like jobs maybe once a week or 2. I actually work, just 6 hrs a week, at WIC (which i am also getting back on), and I am going to school full time (federal grants).

DH's unemployment just ran out. Luckily for our family, I stocked up on food, but it won't last forever, and I am getting pretty worried.

Does anyone know if Costco accepts food stamps?

[mammal_mama]

Hi, Lizzy! I don't know about Costco, but hope everything goes well!

[aihcalappa]

Lizzy, I just googled it, and it looks like they don't. Good luck with getting on foodstamps. Is your worker giving you a hard time? We have been on fs a few different times (including now) and it really depends on your worker how easy/hard it is. The worker we have now is cool, but the one we got when I was pg with my oldest, and applying for Medicaid and fs was a real UAV, and actually made me cry.

[Ianthe]

Originally Posted by appalachia

Lizzy, I just googled it, and it looks like they don't.

That's unfortunate. They could stretch so much further if they did.

A local HFS takes them though, so that's pretty cool!

[happyhats]

This is about my prenatal care, but I think it fits in here because I'm on pregnancy medical assistance.

In a nutshell, I think my clinic has just stopped caring about giving me decent care. And while I like my obgyn, I feel like he's let me down by not taking care of the problems.

They keep giving me scare tactics about gestational diabetes, but they don't give me any real advice. I've had two one hour tests, and now I'm being pushed to still get a three hour one. I've never been given ANY advice on how to monitor or treat this illness, if I have it, but I've sure been told multiple times how bad it could be. So yeah. I've had to go online and read up for myself, try to change my diet on my own (I still don't have a glucometer though so I don't really know if it's working but at least I feel more in control of the issue, kwim?) while they sat on my results for almost two weeks that my last test came up high.

I'm also supposed to be having fairly regular ultrasounds because my dd has a two vessel cord. I call to find out that the paperwork has never shown up. This isn't the first time this has happened either. Also, last week they called me and left a message on my machine to get info by calling them back-I did to be told there was no messages for me! Grrr.

I'm not really worried about dd. Even though she has the two vessel cord she's been striving thus far. Her heartbeat is good, she moves and kicks like a little trooper, etc. My body says everything is fine, and I trust my instincts. I just really don't like this feeling of being jerked around, and I'm losing trust that they have my best interests in mind.

[mammal_mama]

My sugar was way high with my second dd (I didn't find out 'til I started seeing my midwife in the 7th month). And I never did those diabetes tests -- I just peed on the strips and that was it.

She said this is totally correctable, even this late. She advised me to start eating several times a day, and just make sure I ate something high in protein each time. I quit drinking juice, except I might occasionally have like one cup of orange juice after eating a full meal. Really I didn't miss it, I've always liked fresh fruit better.

I still ate my homemade iced chocolate brownies and cakes - but, again, I had like one brownie after eating a meal with something high in protein.

And my sugar stayed pretty normal for the rest of the pregnancy. I also stopped having so much protein in my urine (which was a sign of protein deficiency and can lead to toxemia). When I started eating more protein, I also lost a bunch of weight. Which would normally be a concern during pregnancy -- but my midwife was pretty sure that I'd been retaining fluids because I wasn't eating enough protein. Once I upped my protein, my body got rid of the excess fluid.

Also, increasing my protein lessened my craving for sweets!

And everything went great. Homebirth all the way!

[hanno]

My husband and baby get food stamps and medicaid. I don't qualify because I'm a Canadian citizen. It's been really difficult because we don't really have the money to make up the difference so we're trying to budget to cover us all on what they get. We've been managing so far but the pantry is depleting rapidly.

[aihcalappa]

Originally Posted by hanno

My husband and baby get food stamps and medicaid. I don't qualify because I'm a Canadian citizen. It's been really difficult because we don't really have the money to make up the difference so we're trying to budget to cover us all on what they get. We've been managing so far but the pantry is depleting rapidly.

[happyhats]

mammal_mamas, you've given me hope! I've been really worrying my butt off over this whole thing. I've upped my protein and been watching the sugars, so hopefully little one is doing just fine.

hanno, that sucks. Are there any food banks near you? Your hubby should automatically qualify since he has aide, and that would help all of you.

[mammal_mama]

Originally Posted by happyhats

mammal_mamas, you've given me hope! I've been really worrying my butt off over this whole thing. I've upped my protein and been watching the sugars, so hopefully little one is doing just fine.

Oh, good! I just learned so much through my midwife, which no one ever told me with my first (with whom I did the medical thing).

When is Baby due? Our midwife was totally willing to wait for payment until our tax-return came. Also, our state Medicaid doesn't cover homebirth or independent midwives -- but if yours does, you may be able to switch to an independent midwife and still be covered.

I can't remember if you were thinking about homebirth. We didn't feel comfortable doing that with our first -- but in retrospect we realize everything tends to go so much more smoothly away from the medical environment. I hope you find help that works for you!

hanno, that sucks. Are there any food banks near you? Your hubby should automatically qualify since he has aide, and that would help all of you.

, I hope you can get some more help, too!

[Ianthe]

I just found out we qualify for food stamps.. OMG what a relief!

[aihcalappa]

Originally Posted by LizzyQ

I just found out we qualify for food stamps.. OMG what a relief!

:

[mammal_mama]

Originally Posted by LizzyQ

I just found out we qualify for food stamps.. OMG what a relief!

oh, I'm so glad for you!

[happyhats]

The bubola is due December 8, but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if she showed up a little early. She's already dropped, and I'm already getting regular brackton hicks.

I live in MO, and midwifery has just become legal since after my pregnancy. I am completely okay with homebirthing, but paying out of pocket would be next to impossible and travel is kinda difficult (closest midwife I've heard of is two hours away, but honestly I haven't done a ton of research either). At this point I think I'm just going to deal with the doctors and clinic the least amount possible, while maintaining health of course, and I plan on laboring at home for as long as possible. If I had a UC I wouldn't mind in the least, by my dh is afraid of the prospect so I'll probably go to the hospital for the pushing part anyway.

I know that if I have a second baby I'll be more informed and hopefully I'll be in a situation to have a midwife. If not, I know I won't be using this clinic again and looking around for a more suitable doctor for me. While I know moving wouldn't be the end all be all at this stage, it seems like it would be difficult. Luckily I've been pretty serious about sticking to a more diabetic friendly diet and now that I've taken myself away from the situation a bit (I tend to obsess) I know that I can pretty much take a lot of medical advice with a grain of salt.

Enough about me.

LizzyQ, I'm glad for your good fortune and the relief its bringing you!

[mammal_mama]

Originally Posted by happyhats

I live in MO, and midwifery has just become legal since after my pregnancy.

Really?! I'm in Missouri, too, and when I had dd2 three years ago, midwifery was only legal under a doctor, and you only heard about Medicaid covering certified nurse midwife's in hospitals or birthing centers.

Are you saying that it's now legal for independent midwives to attend homebirths in Missouri? If it is, then Medicaid should cover it. At the time of dd2's birth, the only way this could be legal was if a doctor was willing to assume total legal responsibility for everything a midwife did, wherever she happened to be -- which of course, as my midwife said, no doctor is crazy enough to do, as that's an insane amount of responsibility.

So midwives attending homebirths in Missouri, really had to go out on a limb and believe in what they were doing. And be willing to take a tremendous risk.

But, again, if it's now legal for independent midwives to attend homebirths, then that means Missouri Medicaid should cover them. I'm surprised I never heard of this new legislation, I'll have to go look it up.

[Satori]

I'm having an oh crap kind of morning so far I thought I was doing really well in all but one of my classes (math) but today is the last day to drop so I rechecked all my classes and I some how missed the fact that if I so much as miss one assignment in my psych 101 class I will fail (you only have 3 chances to earn points and I missed one of them) so I will need to drop the class unless I want a D or an F, I'd rather a W. Problem is that will drop my fin aid package by about $400 I'll still be full time but not in the eyes of the school because my last class is at another college so they won't count it That $400 is our xmas money, any extra's a need like clothes, toiletries, extra food, gas, what ever money I'm sure it will work out but right now today, things suck.

Would it be better to just keep trying and hope I get a C or if I get an F so be it but I'll end up with A's and B's in my other 3 classes at this school so my GPA will balance out. I'm just worried about what losing that $400 is going to do to us and half that money was marked to replace my desk top computer which is very old and in dire need of replacement (1.4 mhz Pentium and 512mb of ram that I can't even update and the hardware is failing along with the drives, going to replace it with something off eBay for $250-300 since I don't need software) and all my classes are online and I don't live near the school so having a working computer is a must.

[tuppence]

@Satori, My advice from an ex-teacher and a current student is to call your professor now! See if there's anything you can do to make up the assignment or get extra credit that would keep you from failing! It won't hurt to ask, and then you can decide what to do from there. I mean, if the prof is really like, no you missed an assignment, you're going to fail, then it doesn't seem like there'd be much point but you might want to talk to your school's fin aid counselors to make sure it won't mess things up with your loan/grant. Since you've made it to the drop date, you may not be penalized money wise but the rules are different everywhere.

[mammal_mama]

Originally Posted by tuppence

@Satori, My advice from an ex-teacher and a current student is to call your professor now! See if there's anything you can do to make up the assignment or get extra credit that would keep you from failing! It won't hurt to ask, and then you can decide what to do from there. I mean, if the prof is really like, no you missed an assignment, you're going to fail, then it doesn't seem like there'd be much point but you might want to talk to your school's fin aid counselors to make sure it won't mess things up with your loan/grant. Since you've made it to the drop date, you may not be penalized money wise but the rules are different everywhere.

Yes, I'd talk to the professor, too ... You never know what you might be able to work out if you try! Let us know how it goes!

[Nursingnaturalmom]

Can i jump in here? I probably won't post all that much, but you are all inspiring.
I have a question though. I understand that fs aren't supposed to be ALL the food money for the month. But in our reality, it is. Its ALL we get. We are fortuanate to get enough to survive but not get gourmet meals. My question is, does anyone else have only the fs for food a month? If so, how do you spend it? Meaning, do you do a monthly stock up all at once and then supplement with fruit veggies etc as the month progresses or do you do weekly shopping? I'm trying to figure out if it would stretch farther if I shop the really good sales and stock up and then eat from the pantry freezer for the month, or if I should keep going weekly? Make sense?

Oh and don't forget for those of you that qualify to look into heating and electric assistance this winter

[Satori]

Originally Posted by Nursingnaturalmom

Can i jump in here? I probably won't post all that much, but you are all inspiring.
I have a question though. I understand that fs aren't supposed to be ALL the food money for the month. But in our reality, it is. Its ALL we get. We are fortuanate to get enough to survive but not get gourmet meals. My question is, does anyone else have only the fs for food a month? If so, how do you spend it? Meaning, do you do a monthly stock up all at once and then supplement with fruit veggies etc as the month progresses or do you do weekly shopping? I'm trying to figure out if it would stretch farther if I shop the really good sales and stock up and then eat from the pantry freezer for the month, or if I should keep going weekly? Make sense?

Oh and don't forget for those of you that qualify to look into heating and electric assistance this winter

We have to drive an hour to get to the good stores that have good prices so we go once a month and hit the sales and stock up. Then I spend about $10 a week just getting little filler stuff like an onion or a lettuce locally. Usually my fridge keeps stuff good for about 3 weeks but by that 4th week we tend to need to hit the store. (I have a large fridge and deep freezer so we have space). Anyway, what I get in FS is usually my entire food budget but I often end up spending about $20 a month in cash but they just raised our FS about $50 and will raise them another $40 when I turn in the Dr's note about the special diet we need which means higher food costs.