I’m writing this while waiting for Daniel to wake up from his nap and also waiting for Jon and my evil twin to finish grilling my dinner. 🙂 Because of this, I’m saving Cari’s comment for tomorrow or Monday. Today, I wanted to talk about my experience with WIC because Cari references it in her comment.

My mother-in-law was one of the first women to go on WIC and I think it was with my husband (35) though I could be wrong — it could be with my sister-in-law (who is almost 30). Basically, it was created by Jimmy Carter as a way of helping a mother take care of her child. The idea was to remove a reason for the mother to abort her child so the checks are always in the name of the mother and not the boyfriend or father. You can apply when pregnant and the income threshold is 185% of the poverty level. The page with the list of state agencies is here.

I first applied in May 2010 when we were in southern California. I wish I’d been able to do a better search on which office was the closest because I ended up going to an office that was farther away from our apartment than I needed to. Also, I was usually the only white woman there which wasn’t a bad thing — just… not my usual experience. When I came in, I’d sign in and wait to be called. Daniel hated to sit still (he still hates it) so I’d stroller him around the office. They’d call me and measure him and then I’d see the nutritionist. Their chief nutritionist was a woman from Germany and I think she was so used to dealing with moms who knew nothing about nutrition and basic care of their children because she treated me like I was completely stupid. Daniel was severely underweight due to texture issues in his mouth (which is common with preemies who have been on ventilators) and she couldn’t understand why he wasn’t gaining weight. She would give me pamphlets on shakes made with ice cream that “kids like to eat” and I’d come back the next month to tell her that it didn’t work and that I couldn’t make him drink it. After my monthly (or so) fight with her, they’d print out checks for a month and make an appointment for me to come back.

When I went to the grocery store, I’d have a check with specified amounts of food on it like a gallon of milk, 16 oz. of whole grains, and 16 oz. of cheese. They give you a booklet that explains what you can and cannot use the checks for and when I first went to the WIC office, they showed me a video on what to do. When I’d check out, I’d separate the WIC items from the other things I was buying and the checkers would process the checks a certain way, making me show them my book to verify my signature. What they allow is different for pregnant women than it is for breastfeeding women (they’re big on breastfeeding) or for moms with kids of different ages.

When we moved up to northern California, it took awhile to get re-established with WIC because of Daniel’s hospital stay and the fact that my nutritionist in southern California was singularly unhelpful in giving me any idea of how to find my county office. The county office up here also is annoying when it comes to getting someone to answer the phone. Finally, I located it while I was out one day and made an appointment to come in with Daniel. That first appointment was just to get us set up in their system and they were completely chill with Daniel crawling around the room and getting into everything. The next month, I met with Nancy (one of the nutritionists) and she was just unbelievably wonderful. I had met with a pediatric nutritionist at UC Davis a few weeks earlier and Nancy wanted to hear everything they’d had to say. She helped me get things worked out to have WIC pay for a month of Pediasure while we worked through a home healthcare place to get Medicaid to pay and she even gave me some ideas on how to get him working on different textures.

The last year that I’ve dealt with WIC has been almost exactly like my appointment with Nancy — they’ve been patient about Daniel flipping out because he wants to get into things and after two appointments of Daniel tantruming, Nancy put something in the computer that allows me to come in without him as long as he stays within the bounds he needs to on the growth chart. They’ve altered checks to take out some of the milk because Daniel is on the Pediasure and also taken out the eggs because both Daniel and I are allergic to them. When I asked them why they weren’t forcing me to attend “class” like they did in southern California (a short lecture on stuff like introducing more vegetables and decreasing sugar in your child’s diet), they explained that Daniel was eating well and within good bounds on the growth chart so they weren’t going to make do that. At the appointment before Daniel started school, I asked about lunches and they gave me some ideas on what to pack that he might eat. It’s been like having my own personal nutritionists and it’s a complete change from my experience in southern California. The local office is walking distance from our parsonage and it’s clean and a place where I’d be OK with Daniel crawling on the floor. It’s cheerful-looking and the staff is wonderful. (They weren’t bad in southern California — it was just that nutritionist.)

I am an enthusiastic recommender of WIC because I honestly believe they do good things. Both offices I’ve dealt with have a social worker there some days to deal with things like food stamps, Medicaid, and other programs and I think they could also recommend a pediatrician to me if I needed one. Granted, there are experiences like the one I had in southern California but even that was at least somewhat helpful in that they still gave me the checks and it still helped out immensely with feeding all of us.

Anyone else have experience with WIC?

This is going to be a multi-part entry because there were a lot of comments that need to be addressed. I know that Cari’s comment needs to be its own post and it’s also early in the weekend so there may be other comments that need addressing.

The first thing I want to do is let you know what happened, what programs we’re still part of, and why.

2009: Daniel is born at 29.5 weeks. As we knew we’d be looking at a massive hospital bill for him, the NICU social worker advised us to file for SSI for him which would also make him eligible for Medicaid. Based on his birth weight (1 lb 15 oz.), he was also eligible for Social Security to write off whatever insurance did not cover of his NICU bill.

2010: We moved from Montana to California after Jon’s parish situation deteriorated. We went through our savings in about two months and ended up applying for WIC, food stamps, and Medicaid for the three of us. (We had lost Medicaid for Daniel when SSA discovered an error.) We were granted WIC but our caseworker screwed up on the food stamps and Medicaid. Jon eventually got a youth pastor position which helped a bit and started working for his parents. He also supply-preached and did funerals which also helped. (Funeral homes will frequently have pastors on-call in case a family doesn’t have a church but would like a religious funeral for their loved one.) In September, he was called to Metanoia as the interim pastor. Meanwhile, I applied for Healthy Families (California’s S-CHIP) and Medicaid for Daniel. Straight Medicaid was denied but they’d kick something in after something like $1300/month. Healthy Families was denied because you had to be without insurance for a specific period of time before you were eligible. (My mom, God bless her, paid our insurance premiums so that there would be no lapse in coverage — neither Daniel nor I could be without insurance and until last year, Daniel was uninsurable.) We also got hooked up with the Regional Center (California’s agency for developmental disabilities). In November, I reapplied for SSI for Daniel as his developmental delays qualified him.

2011: Jon was called to Metanoia full-time in January and we moved up to northern California in February. His income was still under the threshold for WIC so we transferred up here. A week and a half after moving up here, Daniel ended up in the hospital for three weeks. The hospital social workers hooked me up with California Childrens’ Services which required me to apply for Medicaid. We were granted Medicaid which would kick in after $500 in medical costs per month. Meanwhile, SSI chugged through and I had to go into the office in the town to the south of us and get that squared away. It took two months and learning how to harass the right people but Daniel finally got approved and we were granted retroactive SSI and retroactive Medicaid. California Childrens’ Services paid for his hematology appointments and his Lovenox while he still required shots and we got things transferred to the Regional Center up here who are the epitome of awesomeness. They covered physical/occupational/speech/infant program through Easter Seals and one independent contractor. Daniel’s clot (from his central line during his hospitalization in March) disappears and we’re able to be kicked out of the hematology practice and California Childrens’ Services.

2012: Daniel turns three which means that the local school district is now in charge of speech/occupational therapy. He is diagnosed with autism (thank you to the Regional Center for paying for the testing) and is in an ABA classroom. We’re still hooked up with the Regional Center and are trying to get an in-home program in place. We’re also still hooked up with WIC and will be until our income is higher than the threshold or until Daniel turns 5.

OK… onto addressing comments!

From Stacy (who, by the way, is a social worker and knows her stuff):

I get SO ANGRY when people talk about those who abuse the system. For every one person who is abusing it, I’m sure there are 100+ who aren’t. Not to mention that the system is set up for people to you know…. not really be able to get out of it! Sooo frustrating. On another note, our Medicaid/food stamp office is BEAUTIFUL. I’ve never seen anything like it but it makes me so happy that the people going there for help don’t have to feel like they need to go on antibacterials afterward.

Granted, I’m seriously mysophobic so the anti-bacterials are a given with me. However, part of the problem is that a number of programs are housed at the DPSS in Pomona and the DHHS in Sacramento and they’re both located in seriously urban areas so they get a lot of traffic. I think if I went at the moment they opened, it would be less nasty for me. (OK… I’ve actually done that with the DPSS and it was still nasty.) The WIC office I go to in northern California is beautiful and clean (and located within walking distance from me) so that’s actually a positive. The one in southern California was not bad but it was overused so it got yucky.

From Jen:

What??s sad/true is that you have to be somewhat well-educated/literate in English to be able to wade through the bureaucracy, including knowing where to get official documents, how to correctly fill out the forms, etc. My husband sees a lot of this in his line of work??with former incarcerated men trying to re-enter the community. They aren??t well educated, they don??t have certain common sense skills (like how to start looking for their birth certificate) and there??s little to no help in teaching them these types of things (that a lot of us take for granted), so it??s no wonder why many of them end up back in prison. Because it??s easier. The staff at the halfway houses and re-entry programs can only do so much to assist, but there??s not enough time, money, staff, etc. Vicious cycle.

Having done prison ministry, I can attest to this. A lot of the men I dealt with when I’d go into the local prison in Montana (a for-profit medium security prison housing inmates for the state of Montana) were from disadvantaged backgrounds so they were there after making some really bad decisions. I could totally see me going in and teaching a class in how to do all these things but I stopped going in after getting pregnant because of the potential to be taken hostage while in the prison. Granted, it’s not even the most intuitive process for those of us on the outside to do things like getting a copy of a marriage certificate because it requires knowing what county to contact and what’s needed to do so. I know it was really hard to get a copy of my birth certificate for a library card when I didn’t have a valid ID in Minnesota — I had to go to a parishioner who was a loan officer and had notary privileges to get stuff signed to make the request.

OK… heading to bed. Will write more tomorrow.