APD

There's nothing like timing. APD is the Agency for Persons with Disabilities. In Florida, also known as "the Medicaid waiver" by a majority of people who don't realize there are actually something around 12 waivers... but this is the one for people with developmental disabilities which will fill in some gaps in care and medical treatment for children and adults.

Unfortunately, the waiting list is 3+ years! And a child must be 3 years old before being allowed to apply. When Brianna turned 3 our current caseworker for home-based infant and toddler services sent a referral for both Brianna and Emma for them to be able to apply. Timing there was awful. Right at that time I was really sick with the pregnancy and had a few other things in the air and I totally dropped the ball. I had 30 days to fill out the paperwork in duplicate and turn it in. I found out that I just had to have the referral resent and I could still apply... but then after having our little friend coming and all the busyness of summertime I decided to wait until Micah's birthday and take care of the paperwork x3 instead. After all, I didn't want the 30 days to expire a second time.

Well, the paperwork was dated 9.8.09. Which means it sat at my house for a full week before I even opened it after getting home from the hospital and having a day or two to get back on my feet. Now it's been three weeks and I am finally able to sit down and fill it out. The timing on this one wasn't so great either!! I'm honestly not sure that there ever really is a GOOD time to have to fill out triplicate of paperwork tho. It's just time consuming.

So now the paperwork is filled out except the release of information pages. It says that for "mental retardation" (which is what my children qualify under) they need the IQ and adaptive testing. It says this is often in a school psychological evaluation. Hmm... Not sure we had them do an IQ test? So I'm sending the release of information for both our pediatrician and their school. And I'll also request a copy of this from the school-- and hope and pray that there's something on file at one place or another that will 'count' toward proving that yes, the children are delayed. Isn't it weird how one minute you hope they don't test low and the next you hope there's proof they're behind?

Not that you want your child to be behind... but I know they ARE. And I know that having this waiver will allow us to provide much more for the kids than we can right now. And that long-term it will benefit them even more. But it all has to be pretty on paper.

Off to get copies of the kids' SS cards, birth certificates, certificates of citizenship for my two Ukrainians, and my own driver's license. Oh, and Emma's Florida ID card since it asks for it... weird to send my 6 yr old's "driver's license" :)

Here's to a successful application going in the mail before the end of the week so that the APD gets it before my 30 days are up!!