Please pray . . .

We are planning on faxing in our waiver request for off-base OB care tomorrow. Bob found the letter we wrote last year (almost literally--we wrote it on Sept. 8, 2005, LOL), and we modified it for this pregnancy, so we are ready to go. There is a new person in the position this year, so who knows what he or she will say about this?

To recap the situation for those who weren't in on last year's stresses, I am seen at a primary care clinic that is off-base, but is still a military treatment facility. It's about 35 minutes away, but it doesn't have OB care. For that, I have to go to Ft. Belvoir, which is an hour away by the Beltway and I-95, making it a real crapshoot for how long it could potentially take to get there, given the traffic situations on those 2 roads. You are automatically granted a waiver for civilian care if you live 40 miles away from the hospital, but we live only 33 miles away, so we have to beg and plead for a waiver. Obviously, having the waiver denied would mean incredible inconvenience for routine appointments, as I would either have to take everyone on a 3-4 hour trip, or I have to find someone to watch them all for that amount of time. All of our close friends here are homeschoolers, and I don't want to take up their entire school day with babysitting, not to mention adding 5 kids to already large families is certainly added stress. But we are also pretty concerned that if I were to go into labor during rush hour or when there was an accident on the road, we very likely could end up delivering on the shoulder of the Beltway. It certainly has happened here before. So please be praying that the military powers-that-be will take mercy on us and our situation and grant the waiver to us, and also that it wouldn't take long to make it's way through the system. Thanks.