My day

7:30am-Got up
7:45-Took Madison to school
8:00-Gage up, breakfast, got ready, got Gage ready
8:30-Took Gage to school
8:45-Becky calls and Autumn is running fever...call dr.
9:15-Take Autumn to the dr.--she has an ear infection
10:00-Go to get paper notarized
10:30-Meet mom to pick up paperwork for CDS
11:00-Go to Staples and Petsmart
11:30-Pick up Gage from school
11:45-Ate lunch (forgot to feed Gage though..he's never hungry anyways)
12:00pm-Faxed all 24 sheets to CDS company...made copies of all documents
1:00-Picked up Autumn meds, went to post office to mail documents
2:30-Started laundry (James helped)...made phone calls to nursing agency, DME company, and Medicaid
3:15-Picked up Madison from school
3:30-More laundry and not sure what else I really did during this time..I guess wasted time
5:00-Made dinner
5:30-Ate (remembered to feed Gage this time)
6:00-Balanced checkbook, paid bills, got ALL the forms and checks filled out for Gage's school fundraiser, pictures, gymnastics, book club, Angel food ministry
8:00-Laundry and boiled water because Autumn is out of sterile water for her heater tonight.
8:30-Got Gage ready for bed
9:00-Tired so decided to update my blog instead of being productive
Still to come: dishes and bath...house cleaning will have to wait until tomorrow.

So, I thought once Gage started school I would get 3 mornings of getting my house all cleaned and organized but that has not happened yet. It seems there is always something to be done with Autumn's medical stuff or errands to run. Tomorrow will be a more calm day with me hopefully finishing laundry and cleaning my house and we just have speech therapy and jsut a couple of errands to run. Friday will be ANOTHER hectic day....James will have to take my car to get the oil changed...I have to go to Madison's school and do PTA stuff and Autumn has to get her flu shot and trying to pick up kids in between. This weekend will be spent packing for our Dallas trip next week...I'm trying to get so much done this week since I won't be around next week to do it.

All this to say that I am SO excited and blessed that my mom is officially now my employee and can help me out with so much around here and I can pay her and not feel guilty that she's doing it. ;) God always knows when I am getting overwhelmed and just can't ever catch up and sends me angels to help. He did this with my day nurse back in June and now with my mom. We also have a new night nurse starting on Friday as well just to fill in the days the regular night nurse can not work.

Be praying for Autumn...her ear infection did not seem too bad but she's been running non-stop fever since 2:00pm today and alternating Tylenol and Motrin just has not been able to get it completely gone...as of now she's at 100.0 so hopefully it will go away soon.

Good night to all and moms I just want to say whether you are a stay-at-home mom or work outside of the home mom....a married or single mom....a special needs mom or a mom to perfectly healthy kids....YOU ARE AWESOME!!!! My day is just a typical day of every mom out there and just remember you are doing God's work and you were made special.

Autumn's 1st Birthday Party

Autumn had a great first birthday party even though many people were not able to make it. I was sad that not everyone was able to come but so very thankful for the ones who did to make this first birthday a very special one for Autumn. It meant so much to me.

Here's Autumn's cake

Happy Birthday to YOU!!!

She drove right into her cake

and had cake ALL over her face, arms, and hair.

She got LOTS of gifts but did not feel like downloading all the pictures (some are on facebook though). There was a big jumper with a slide that kept all the other kids busy and the boys into trouble. The hotdogs were yummy! It was a great relaxing time to spend with family and close friends. Thanks everyone for wishing Autumn a special first birthday and for all the presents!!

Two posts in one

We did not do anything special for Autumn's birthday because we are having her a party this weekend. She got to go to the dr. and get her 12 month shots...she slept through them and did not feel a thing. Most moms would think this is great but I would so love to hear her cry for shots and know she could feel her legs...the things we do not know to be thankful for until we are faced with the other side. ;) She did get to wear her cute birthday shirt though. She also got 2 birthday balloons from her Nana and her BFF, Lily. They came to visit to bring Autumn a mini pumpkin decorated just for her and a balloon. Below is a picture of Lily, Becky (Gea), and Autumn. Becky is Autumn's day nurse and Lily's grandma. I will have lots of pictures to post Sunday of her Saturday party.

Today was one of those days for me where I just got so overwhelmed dealing with medical crap that I had to just let it out in tears of frustration. First, I still can't get anyone to call me back about getting on the CDS program for our MDCP. We have not been using out MDCP because our nursing agency still has not gotten it set up so I've been trying to set it up where I can hire my own people and pay them. So, another month of not using MDCP could mean we lose our Medicaid so I'm really stressing about getting this done. Next, James insurance company is changing their policies so the option we really need for our family will cost us about $675 a month which means an extra $350 would be taken out of our paycheck each month. Um...not possible for us since right now we are able to just make ends meet month to month. So, we have to do the next option down which does not have co-pays so anytime we use a dr. we will have to pay the full amount until our deductable is met and then the 20%...well, for a family of five this is a big deal for us. They have a free clinic we can use but you have to see the PA's and I want my kids seen by a peditrician and the clinic is going to be crowded with all of the City of Midland employees using the same 2 doctors. It just frustrates me that I send my husband out risking his life every night for this city and then they want to repay him by making insurance outragiously expensive for his family. Having a special needs child we are already in debt medically and if one bad thing happens to any of us it will be something we will not be able to recover from financially. So, this is where I had to calm down and remember God is in control and I just need to trust Him through all of this. Thirdly, James called our DME company about the status of the equipment we have been waiting on. Thankfully our pulse ox and vent stand finally came in. Whoo Hoo...after waiting over 6 months it's about time. Well, James asked about our back-up vent and the guy said he has not heard back from our insurance or Medicaid about approval yet. James wanted to confirm though that they did have a vent waiting in the office in case this one failed and when the approval came in. Um no...they do NOT have one. I was told they had one but apparently another patient needed it and so they gave it to them and have not gotten another one in. James asked about what would happen if the vent broke tonight and the guy responded, "Let's just hope it doesn't" Are you kidding me??? Yeah, let's hope it doesn't because my daughter would die...we can only bag her for so long before needing to get her on a ventilator. Of course we would call an ambulance to come get her and take her to the ER but why go through the trouble or expense of all that when she could have a vent right next to her to hook her up to. I'm always nervous also if something would happen on our drive to Dallas and no other vent and not near a city. I'm sick of putting my daughter's life at risk because of medical crap we have to deal with to get the things she needs. So, needless to say today was just one of those days where I'm overwhelmed with the healthcare system in our country. This evening though we took Autumn for her 1 year old photo shoot so it was nice to not think about medical stuff and just have fun getting pictures made (even though Autumn had not had an afternoon nap and did not want to cooperate very well). We did take her off the vent for some pictures and she did about 5 minutes vent free before desatting...whoo hoo...which is good since she does not have a back up vent. haha..okay bad joke. So, tomorrow Nanny and PaPa are coming to visit so it will be a great weekend of spending time with family...I just LOVE when all of my family gets together.

Happy 1st Birthday Autumn!!!

Yes, the time has come that my baby turns ONE!!!

We have come a LONG way from this little 5lb,15oz.; 18 inch baby that spent the first 4 months enduring surgeries and living her life in the hospital to....

this HAPPY, 18lbs.6oz; 25 inch bright-eyed, inspirational little girl!!!
(I took her vent off just long enough to get a tube free picture)

I can not believe it was only a short year ago this time last year when we were anxiously waiting for Autumn's arrival. We were excited and fearful of what was to come. Things did not happen the way we expected or hoped for but looking at Autumn today I can truly say, "She's worth every minute of it"!!! We still have a long road ahead of us but this little girl has taught me so much in this past year that I never learned in my other 29 years of life and could only learn it from her. She's such a joy to know and just to think she MY daughter. (and James too)

Happy Birthday my beautiful Princess!!!

By the way, Autumn did not get her first tooth for her first birthday like I was wishing for...maybe though she will have a mouth full by her second??? lol

Home again

Our trip home went well. I'm exhausted though and nurse free for 3 nights so I am going to be so ready for my nurses on Monday. ;) I've come to the conclusion that Autumn does much better in the Dallas humidity than the West Texas dryness. I guess I need to go get her an humidifier to use in her room at night and see if that helps. She hardly ever desats every time we are in Dallas but as soon as we get past Abilene the desats start coming again. Last night she had to be on a 28 breathrate and 1/2 liter of oxygen and today she's had extra secretions than normal and desatting ALL day. I guess this is just another reason why we should move away. There is also so many SB activities we could attend in the Dallas area as well which would be good for Autumn as she grows older.

Moving has been a heavy weight on my heart because I really do not want to leave my parents or nurses here. I do not want to go through the nurse search again and know I will need some type of help when we move. I think though this is something that needs to be done even though I go back and forth with the decision. I also know as Autumn gets older traveling will get harder on her and once she gets to school we can't keep having her miss weeks for dr. appts. So, I have decided to do some research and see what we need to do and where we want to move to. It looks as though Rowlett may the best option for us. Even though James does not want to do police work anymore he will have to to get us moved there and stable and then he can start searching for other types of jobs. We can go ahead and put our house for sale and then move in with my parents until the school year is up so the kids will not be pulled out in the middle of the year. After the new year, James can move to Rowlett and we can buy a house and get it all ready before me and the kids move there. Our family was apart for 5 months when Autumn was in the hospital so I know we can handle another 5 months. This will give me time to get nursing and a DME equipment in order and transfer her MDCP over. So, that is kind of out plan as of right now but we will see what actually happens...God shows us differently at times. ;) I've also been researching schools for the kids and in Garland ISD no matter where you live you can choose which school your child attends but you have to put in your choice by January for the next school year. I also hear they have really good special needs classes so that is another plus for Autumn. ;) We are continuing to pray about it all and see what happens.

Well, Madison stepped on a rusty nail this evening. She's my DRAMA queen so anytime she's injured it's like she lost a limb or something. I was on the phone in Autumn's room and Gage came in telling me sissy wants to show me something...so I told him hold on and a couple of mins later went into the living room and saw Madison sitting on the couch with a nail sticking out of her foot and crying a little. She didn't start crying really hard until she saw me and knew we would have to pull it out. So, after about 5 mins of her preparing herself..she finally let me pull it out while she screamed into a pillow. It was bleeding pretty good and so we got it cleaned up and then came the news that she will need a tetnus shot. Oh my goodness...you would think you just told her her favorite pet had died or something. She went on and on bawling and crying. We finally had to get stern with her to calm down and not make such a big deal about it. I took her to the ER and they said she could actually wait until Monday morning to get one so home we came. I guess that means that Monday morning I get to start my morning by re-living the drama all over again. I'm so thankful God did not choose for Madison to have SB because I'm not sure she could handle the calling as well as Autumn has.

SB/Neurosugery Clinics

Not much to talk about with her appts. today. I thought we'd get a lot of info during our SB clinic since Autumn is almost a year (5 days left). Well, her SB dr. was not even there and we saw his new partner. So, we talked about her constipation issues. They are going to try adding more water to her diet to hopefully get things moving for her. If that does not work they went ahead and wrote me 2 prescriptions. One is for Senna, a medicine to help her with her bowel movements and then another for enemas. Most SB kids get on a bowel program when it's time to potty train where they are given enemas at the same time each day so they can have planned bowel movements and be able to wear underwear like their peers. So, we are going to try and see what is going to work for Autumn since every SB child is different. They are not ready for her to try a stander because they feel she needs more trunk and head control. My PT wants to start her on one soon so we may just go ahead and see if she can do it or not. If not, when Autumn goes back to SB clinic at 18 months they will have a stander for her. That pretty much sums up that appt. She did have to get blood taken but my super star baby did not even cry.

So, we loaded her up, got lunch, and went back to my brother's house for about an hour and then left again for our neurosurgery appt. That appt was literally 5 mins long. The dr. walked in said her MRI looked fine, measured her head, asked a few questions, and then felt her shunt and fontonelle. I asked how her Chiari looked on the MRI and he said it looks like the decompression did open up some space for her fluid to flow and things looked good. Then he said we would not need to see him again for a year and we will get a CT scan in a year. I guess though short visits are good ones because it means everything is all good. I just hate that we travel 6 hours one way and take up 3 days time for appts. that could really be done over the phone. ;) I guess we do what we have to do though for our little princess.

My brother and I worked on Autumn's 1st year video and it looks really good so far. I also picked up Autumn's birthday dress and it is ADORABLE!!! I can't wait to be able to post pictures. Autumn has been doing great again with her stats in the day and night so next week I may have to move her settings down a little and see what a little push will do. ;) I did take some pictures in her birthday outfit today and would unhook her vent from her trach because I wanted pictures without tubes and she did not desat one time....she was even vent free for a couple of minutes so that made me happy. OH....I forgot Autumn rolled from her back to her belly for the first time this morning!! Every new little step is a rejoice party for us...I was proud of her. Well, we head home in the morning and I will get a 2 week break and then on the road again. *sigh*

Fair Fun

This evening we took the kids to the Permian Basin Fair. I've always loved going to the fair and so I get excited every year to take the kids. We hesitate at times though about taking Autumn anywhere because of all the stares we get but I've learned if I just do not really look at people I won't notice them staring at us. So far though we've only had good comments from strangers so that helps. They are always able to look past her equipment and see what a BEAUTIFUL baby she is. Some people just want to touch and squeeze her chubby legs and some do ask us what's wrong with her which I would much rather people do then just stare. Here's a few photos to enjoy from our FUN FILLED night.Madison, James, and Gage on the farris wheel...rides make me sick so I was more than happy to be the one sitting with Autumn while everyone else rode. I took Gage around to riding the kiddie rides while James and Madison took on the big, nauseating rides. She was feeling a little queasy afterwards but they had a blast riding together. Autumn got attention from the carnival game guys and one stopped us to ask what was wrong with her and then gave her a shrek doll and then another one stopped us and gave her a big care bear doll. It was so sweet of them and showed me that there are perks to having a trach and vent attached to you at times. ;)
I remember when Madison was this age and got to ride the ponies....maybe he will be our future jockey. He loved riding them. Autumn fell asleep so she missed all the animals. My favorite part of the fair is the petting zoo so I took Madison and Gage in. Gage LOVED all the animals and the overly aggressive goats did not bother him at all. Madison was scared of the goats..don't know whose kid she is? I took lots of pictures but did not feel like posting them all on the blog.

Madison wanted me to take a end of the day picture of them. Gage was not really mad...he just thinks it's funny to make faces in pictures...Autumn was interested is trying to sit all the way up..and Madison just looks so pretty. We had a great evening with no complaining...well, Gage did get mad once because he wanted to ride the farris wheel again towards the end and we said no...BUT other than that everyone stayed happy and we just had a great time.

This past month has been a VERY difficult one for me spiritually. Today these are the verses I'm meditating on:

Do not gloat over me, my enemy!

Though I have fallen, I will rise.

Though I sit in darkness,

the Lord will be my light.

Because I have sinned against him,

I will bear the Lord's wrath,

until he pleads my case and establishes my right.

He will bring me out into the light;

I will see his righteousness.

Then my enemy will see it and will be covered with shame,

she who said to me,

"Where's the Lord your God?"

My eyes will see her downfall;

even now she will be trampled underfoot like mire in the streets.

Micah 7:8-10

Thank you Lord for letting me get real with you and even angry, resentful, and impatient with you. Thank you for always loving me even through all of my ignorance and selffishness. I do not understand Your ways at times and I just continue to pray I will never doubt Your love for me or what your plan is in our lives. Thanks for giving me this test to strengthen my faith and hope in You. Open my eyes to what you want to teach me and help me to continue to run this journey for You and not grow weary. I love you, Father.

Feeling better

Autumn is starting to feel better now. She's still a little congested at times and the rain moving in does not help her...always get her allergies going. She's really trying to sit up more and tries to pull herself into a sitting position. It's going to feel so different when she can finally sit up straight by herself. It's weird because with most babies they change and learn new things instantly and with Autumn we get to see the slow progress she makes. We are so use to her just laying down in her bed so to actually start seeing her sitting up in her crib will be so different. Before bed I was what we call "burping" her...where we hook up her feeding extension to a syringe and let the air bubbles out of her tummy and then let the milk go back into her tummy. Well, she was laying on her side and next thing I know she's pushing herself up using her forearm trying to sit up. It's so great to see her doing things like that. She's back to pulling her vent tubings from her trach...it's so funny because when you come running to reconnect her she's smiling so proud of herself and waving the vent tubing in the air. I thinks it's time though she learns it's not a game for us. We always did the "no" or "stop" and sign it as well to her. We have even tried the ignoring but ofcourse even if you do not say anything to her she's still getting the attention of me running into the room. So, I have started the hand swat with a stern stop and we will see if that starts to help. So far she still just smiles....although if I walk into the room and see her pulling on the tubes and I yell no or stop to her she will immediately drop the tubing so she does understand it's a no no. It's also funny to watch big brother get onto her when she's pulling on her tubes. He yells, "Autumn Krystene...no ma'am" and runs over to her and removes her hands from the tubes. She enjoys this as well and gives him the biggest grin. Well, there's only 13 days left and my baby will be a year old. The first 4 months of her life seemed to take years but the last 8 months have flown by so quickly. I wanted to have a HUGE celebration and invite everyone to her birthday but then decided to make it a little more simple for me and just have a nice, relaxed party at Nana's house and invite family and a few close friends. I will however make sure to take LOTS of pictures and post for everyone to see. Maybe I will save the huge celebration for when the trach is gone forever...we've already decided that's the year we are going to DisneyWorld...oh and when the kids can have a dog again.

Why the desats my sweet baby girl?

Autumn woke me up just before 6am starting with her desats. She was running a low grade fever so I gave her Motrin along with her other 3 meds. Well, she was awake for about 30 mins then dozed back off. She's been desatting into the high 70's and 80's since then. Her lungs are clear...suctioned and was fine. Her breathrate is up and she's on a liter of oxygen. So, why the desats still? Sometimes when she get too many breaths or too much O2 she will desat so I tried that...nope, didn't work either. Gave a Xopenex treatment as well and still desatting. So I'm puzzled...her head is sunken in so I'm pretty sure her shunt is still working. I guess this mild broncitis is hitting her pretty hard. I hope once she wakes up her stats will go up. She's been on oxygen for over 24 hours straight. Praying she will feel better soon.

ER visit

So, Autumn decided last night to spike a fever all of a sudden at 11:00pm of 104.8. She also threw up once and her heartrate was about 200 bpm. So, the nurse and I got her clothes off and started covering her body in wet rags and gave her tylenol. About 20 mins later it went down to 103.5. James came home to bring us Motrin and take off while we debated whether to take her to the ER or not. She was alert and the temp was going down so we were wondering if we should ride it out until the morning. Tried calling her dr. and he did not answer. Called the hospital and they said they were not busy and recommended we take her in. Scared my dr. was out of town we decided we would probably have to take her in anyways in the morning because she must have some type of an infection for it to spike so quickly and so high. So, James and our night nures loaded up and off they went. I stayed home with the other sleeping kids and to try and get some rest myself because I know today is going to be a long day. Around 2:00am James called and said it was a UTI and she has mild broncitis. So, they called her in a prescription, told us to give her pedialyte for dehydration, and breathing treatments. She was back home by 3:00am...I was so scared they would look at her trach/vent and want to immediately admit her if they did not find an infection right away. I gave James strict orders to fight for her and tell them to do as minimal as possible and to BRING HER HOME!!! I also said major prayers in case James did not listen to me...haha. They gave us the option of IV fluids and antibiotics or call in meds and pedialyte. She's such a hard stick we opted for the second option. Glad to see my girl home again and fever free the rest of the night. Hope today does well. We were suppose to have a few friends stop by who live out of town this weekend to visit but today the house in on lockdown for no visitors. I do not want her exposed while her immune system is down and to give the antibiotics a chance to kick in. Maybe Sunday we will be open...we'll see. So, please continue to pray she will get better.

I surrender!!!

Okay, so I had a stressful day the other day talking to so many people about all of the different programs Autumn could be on. I've been fighting putting her on more programs because it's just more for me to deal with and I am already sick of all the I have to deal with now. Well, today I decided to call and surrender to 2 more programs and now SO thankful I have and wish I would of sooner.



First, I called about getting gas money for our Dallas trips since our account for Autumn is getting low and James missing work also takes a toll on us financially. So, I learned you get $.55 per mile and a round trip to drive back and forth from our house to Dallas is 650 miles so we will get $357.50 per trip. WHAT!? I could of been getting this since January but since I just called about it I can still get reimbursed for our June and August appts. To me this will allow us to have enough money for gas and meals, pay mom some money for taking care of the kids while we are gone, and giving my brother's family a "gift" amount for always opening their home to us every couple of weeks. That's just awesome to me and such a stress relief.



I then called about a program that would allow me to hire my own attendants and/or nurses to take care of Autumn using my MDCP hours. So, instead of having to use the nursing agency to pay for the nursing hours I can pay them. I am the boss who hires and fires and I send in my employees time sheets every 2 weeks and the company I choose just cuts my checks for me. Through this program my nurses would actually get paid more than they do through the nursing agency. Anyways, right now I have 22 hours a week through this program so I've decided to hire my mom to be my attendant to work about 15 hours a week and then pay my day nurse for 7 extra hours each week. My mom would be coming in to clean, do my laundry, help out with Autumn and the other kids. This will also be a blessing to her because it will allow her to make money and be available for me each week. I've been daydreaming of what this means for me. Imagine not having a wreck of a house everyday? Imagine being able to spend more time with Gage and Madison instead of trying to get the household duties done. Somedays I spend HOURS on the phone dealing with Autumn stuff and I can't get anything else done. I could workout, get more involved in church volunteering, or actually scrapbook. WOW!!! I've known about this program since we were in the hospital but I always felt as though I would be doing all the work anyways if I had a "normal" child so why use government money to hire someone to do what I should be doing as a mom? Well, as I get overwhelmed by all the extra things there are to do because I have a special needs child I realize I can't try to be supermom and need to let others help more. My mom was so thrilled to know she could actually get paid to help me out and it is going to be blessing her as much as me. Gage also convinced me today that it's something I need to do. He so bad wanted to go walking this morning but I couldn't because I did not schedule a day nurse. Autumn was feeling sick all day and fussy...I was on the phone for about 3 hours at the same time trying to get info about all these programs...I was cutting out stuff for our church..doing laundry I've been working on for 3 days now...trying to play Wii with him during all of this...while looking around at my messy house. I finally realized it's there for people like me and so I'm going to quit running myself down and neglecting my other 2 kids because I want to try and "do it all". This program could of had my mom here this morning to help with all the chaos that was going on....she would of been here helping anyways if I would of let her but I always feel guilty having her help and not being able to repay even though I know she does not mind. Anyways, I'm thankful for these programs to help us out. Oh, and we were on the verge of losing our MDCP hours which would make us lose our Medicaid because of the nursing agency switch we made back in June and the new agency was not a provider with MDCP but today they called and said they ARE going to allow us to keep it because I have been proactive during the tansistion process. Whoo Hoo!!!

I also talked to a mom of a child with cerebral palsy today that lives here in Midland. She invited me to join her and 4 other special needs mothers for lunch next week. I'm not sure if I will be able to make it or not but excited at the thought of having a group of moms close by who can truly understand what I am going through. So, all in all it's been a pretty blessful day today.

First day of preschool

This morning was Gage's first day of preschool and he was so excited to go. I had to give him the lecture to make sure he listens and does what his teacher says. I also bribed him that if he comes home with a "good day" red tag and collects 10 of them he will get a prize. In gymnastics his not a good listener and has WAY too much energy and can never sit still so going to preschool makes me nervous. This is one of the main reasons I held him back this year...he's just now learning the basics of listening and paying attention and not getting his way. The other main reason was because of his size and even still his 4 year old classmates are all taller than him. Gage ran right into the school when we got there and was ready to give me kisses and run into his classroom. Of course I had to take pictures first and here is one of him and his teacher, Ms. Gwen.

He only goes for about 2.5 hours twice a week but it's a good start for him. He had a good day his teacher said and everytime she had to get onto him he quickly listened and obeyed. I was so proud. So, he got his first red ticket and now only 9 more to go!!

Autumn update: Autumn got her new formula in and is doing well on it so far. I think it may be filling her up more during the day though because her eating by mouth has gone down. I am going to keep track on just how much calories she's getting a day and then when we go to SB clinic in 2 weeks let the dietician check on if we can go down on tube feedings. We'll see. She's had a busy therapy week...4 sessions and is doing much better. We are still working on holding her head midline and strengthening her ab and back muscles to sit up better. She can sit well if leaning on her hands but still not strong enough to do it without the hand support. She's drooling a lot more so keeping my fingers crossed that she will get her first tooth before her birthday.

Other than those things not much more going on around here besides me dealing with all the medical programs and companies. It feels like a full time job trying to keep up with medical bills, phone calls to tons of people and trying to get everything figured out. I told James I wish we had enough money that we never had to deal with the government for help. I'm tired of dealing with Medicaid, SSI, WIC, MDCP, Insurance, etc. It's great to have the help but such a pain to constantly stay on top of it all. I just want to focus on Autumn and not have all the other stress of dealing with so many other people/programs. Those things wear me down so much quicker than anything else but it's what I have to do to make sure Autumn gets what she needs. Hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend.