You may have started following my ID Card saga from the beginning, so I wanted to make sure to let you know how it all went down in the end.

To recap, I couldn’t get my Navy ID card the day Andy got his because I only brought a copy of our marriage license, not the original.  It was dumb, I regret it, but the woman we dealt with could have been WAY LESS nasty about it and I wouldn’t have broken down in her office.

But, I digress…

It turns out we actually had our original marriage license.  It was in our old plastic file box, not our new file cabinet.  I could have sworn that Andy told me he moved everything over to the new file, but I wasn’t about to blame this mess on him.  This was just a rookie mistake.

The government likes official paperwork.  The end.

Once I had the real certificate in hand (which, for the record, looks almost identical to the photocopy since it’s black and white and doesn’t have any type of colored seals or anything fancy on it) I worked with Andy to find a time for us to all go back out to the ID Card Office.

Again it was a hundred degrees out, Grace’s nap was totally screwed, and we had to deal with Cruella DeVille, BUT we did have a chance to have lunch as a family at Partridge Creek and get our laptop memory beefed up at the Apple Store so it wasn’t all bad :)

Plus, Grace was united with the awesome toys she fell in love with the first time around.  In her mind the ID Card Office is practically Disney World.

Cruella (aka the ID Card lady) was just as rude this time but couldn’t really stop me from getting my card since I had all the right stuff.  She did let me sit in front of the camera wondering when the picture was being taken for what seemed like forever.

I got the distinct impression that the ID cards were a pretty formal thing, so I didn’t think I’d be allowed to smile for my picture.  I sat there stoically waiting for her to give me my cue and then she asked whether I wanted to smile.

Being the over communicator that I am, I said, “Well, I’d like to but I wasn’t sure if it’s ok.”

When does she take the picture?

Mid-sentence.

Therefore, I look like a chipmunk on my official Navy ID card.

Lovely.

Yeah.  It’s a real beauty ain’t it.

Whatever.  It serves its purpose and doesn’t have to be amazing.

You know, like my driver’s license which literally looks like I’m a floating head and neck.

You’ve seen those giant paper mache heads at the parade, right?

Ok, so now that you have that visual, check this out…

What are the freaking odds that I’d wear a shirt the exact color of the background?  Seriously?!

I’m thinking I have a special knack for taking ridiculous ID pictures.

But, chipmunk or parade head aside, the ordeal is over and I’ve got my card!

Once I had my card in hand, I knew I was in the DEERS system and I could move forward with Tricare enrollment.  But that’s another story for another day :)

Do you have any crazy ID pictures floating around in your wallet?  Any particularly nasty encounters at the DMV or elsewhere?

 

So I cried in the ID card office yesterday.

Let me set the stage for you…

• It was like 99° outside
• I’ve been battling a nasty headache for TWO DAYS
• Grace had been whiny all morning and finally settled for a nap 40 minutes before we had to leave the house
• We rushed all the way out to Andy’s campus to pick him up and it took longer than I expected so we were only going to have 45 minutes at the ID office before closing time
• I was anxious about the whole process to begin with
• AND I’m 12 weeks pregnant and still  haven’t had a prenatal appointment because I’ve been waiting for some magical Tricare enrollment package to come in the mail.

Then…

We find the building at the back of the base and get ourselves just through the front door only to be confronted with a sign that says they’ve reached capacity for the day and we should consider finding another ID card office if we’ve traveled a great distance.

WTF?

I almost lost it right then, but I decided to put my big girl panties on and deal with it proactively.  We wandered over to the office and saw the same sign again which didn’t bode well for our cause.  A dark-haired girl was sitting at a small desk in the back corner and everyone else appeared to be waiting for their turn in line.

So naturally I made eye contact with the girl at the desk in the hopes of striking up a conversation about the situation we were in.

Did she acknowledge us?

Nope.

She just sat there.

Nice.

After standing in the doorway for a few minutes like a bunch of buffoons, we started walking toward her and just asked if there was really no chance we would be seen.

She checked with some mystery person in the back who said we could stay.  Phew!

Fortunately they had a nice play area set up for the kids so Grace thought the ID office was actually a fun place to be!

We waited for about an hour and were finally called back.

I heard our number called out but didn’t see where the voice was coming from.  The other people who had been called back followed the staff person back to their desk, but we just heard a voice out of nowhere.

Then, the voice sounded out again, “38!” but this time more agitated.  Because we were on our feet, I could tell the direction it was coming from this time so we made our way back to the lady’s desk.  In an attempt to lighten the mood, I said, “Sorry!  We didn’t know where you were!”

She says, “I’m right here.  Same place I’ve been all along.”

Awesome.

We wait for an hour only to get some crabby old spinster assigned to us.  This is gonna be great.

Andy stepped up to her (cluttered) desk, slid the folder of our documentation over to her and told her that we were there to obtain ID cards.

She looked at him like he had 7 heads.

OH COME ON LADY!  THIS IS WHAT YOU DO ALL DAY LONG!

Because she’s staring at him with a vacant expression, he tells her he’s newly enlisted and that we are there to get our first set of ID cards.

Before looking through our documentation or anything else she asks Andy if he shaved that morning.

Mind you Andy is a fair-skinned, light haired guy that can generally go 2 days without shaving and still look baby faced.

He tells her that he had shaved that day and she pretty much tells him he looks scruffy and he’s going to have to grab his kit from the car to take care of it.

Yeah, like he carries a shaving kit with him everywhere he goes?!?!

After explaining that he didn’t have one with him and that his orders are to complete medical school and that he is not currently held to the grooming standards, she insisted that he shave or she couldn’t help us.

She shooed him of to the PX to buy shaving cream and razors and in the meantime she rifled through the rest of our papers.

Everything was good EXCEPT our marriage license.  We only had 2 photocopies of it in our file cabinet, so I brought a copy instead of the original.  I should have known better but I guess I figured that if I had so much other official documentation and we didn’t even have the original, it might be ok.

I was wrong.

She goes on and on about how copies are no good and anyone could mock up a fake license, blah, blah, blah.

I’m pissed off at this point because I know this means that we are going to all have to come back and their hours are crap with Andy’s school schedule and it’s going to interrupt naptime again and I’m not going to be able to make a prenatal appointment and the universe must hate me.

I was trying to hold back my tears but she kept asking me stupid questions and lecturing me and I just broke down.  Like sobs.  It was embarrassing.

Grace was sitting on the floor playing with dolls from the playroom, Andy was driving over to the PX for his blasted razors and shaving cream, and I was standing there sobbing in front of this total stranger.  I must have seemed like a total basket case.

I was really only mad at myself.  Why did we wait 6 weeks for some info packet that was never going to come?  Why didn’t we ask better questions when we enlisted or when I called the ID office in the first place.  Why?  Why?  Why?!

Of course it all could have been a little better if the woman would have had a little compassion, but whatevs.

I’ve got to contact the county on Monday to get an official copy of our marriage license (why on EARTH don’t we have one??) and then we have to coordinate another day to go all the way out there and start this hoopla all over again.

Lord help me!

I was super excited to be with Andy when he swore into the Navy on May 29th.

I listened carefully to each word of his oath and I sat patiently with him while he filled out gobs of paperwork.

I made sure to write down his rank exactly as it’s captured on all of the important documentation and I took notes about the things he needed to do throughout the next four years before officially becoming an officer.

Sounds like I did everything, right?

Well no, I didn’t.

I somehow figured that we’d be getting some kind of US Navy 101 packet in the mail containing directions for everything we needed to know…

Getting ID cards

Enrolling in Tricare (medical insurance)

Etc, etc, etc.

Nope.  So far there has been no welcome package and since we’re coming up on six weeks since he swore in, I’ve started to get a little antsy.

Now don’t get me wrong.  No one told me we’d get everything handed to us on a silver platter or anything.  I suppose a package could still come in the mail, but since my health benefits expired at the end of last month, I’m pretty darn anxious to get our new medical insurance sorted out.

Andy passed along a few names and numbers to me and I started making calls the other day…

At first I felt pretty silly because I’m so new to being a military spouse that I don’t know all of the lingo.  It’s really helpful to know the basic jargon when you dial into a military main number because that auto attendant requires a glossary of terms!

Is Andy active duty?  What is a sponsor?  What does DEERS stand for?  Have we gotten our orders?

Basically, Andy will be an Officer when he graduates medical school and completes five weeks of Officer Training in Rhode Island.  Until then, he’s ranked as an Enlisted person and his primary duty is successful completion of medical school to fulfill his Collegiate scholarship obligation.

That’s pretty much all I know.

And?

It wasn’t really enough to get things rolling.

Thankfully one of the women I spoke to was very friendly and although she gave me the wrong website to visit for Tricare enrollment, I think she’ll be a handy person to contact WHEN I encounter questions along the way.

I’ll spare you the play-by-play of all the phone calls I made the other day, but the bottom line is this:

We need to start by obtaining our Navy ID cards.

In order to get those, we have to visit the ID Card Office nearest us during business hours and we need to bring the following:

• 2 forms of official government identification EACH (ie drivers license and social security card)
• our marriage certificate
• Andy’s enlistment contract

I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll fill out some paperwork, get pictures taken (I assume they include a photo!) and then walk out of there holding our cards.

Dear Lord, please let them make the cards onsite!

Once I have my ID card in hand, I’ll feel better equipped to handle the insurance stuff.  Although one look at the enrollment forms had me wanting to crawl under my bed to hide out.

Official forms always freak me out.  I’m a smart gal but they always make me feel dumb.

Fortunately if I screw them up I’m sure they’ll get caught up in processing and someone will have to explain what I did wrong.

Now that I’m 12 weeks pregnant, I really want to make an appointment with my midwife so I’m really really really hoping this process all goes smoothly and I can get in to see her in the next couple of weeks!

We’re off to the ID card office tomorrow afternoon.  Grace and I are picking Andy up from school and then having a family date night after the card stuff is taken care of.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Any experienced Navy wives out there who have tips for me should feel free to comment or hit me up on Twitter!  I’m open to as much education as I can get my hands on.