Facing foreclosure has become a reality for many Tampa Bay area residents. The fact that homes sales did rise last month is no consolation to many home owners that facing the foreclosure of their homes.

There are some steps that homeowners can take as they get behind on their mortgage payments. The Federal Housing Administration has provided a few steps for families as they begin to feel a money crunch that prevents them from paying their mortgage.

1. Contact your lender as soon as you have a problem
2. Talk to a housing counselor
3. Prioritize your debts
4. Explore loan workout solutions with your lender
5. If keeping your home is not an option
6. Beware of predatory lending schemes

Florida and the Tampa Bay area have several Hud approved housing counselors.

Links of Interest:

• Federal Housing Administration Foreclosure Prevention Information
• HUDs tips to avoiding Foreclosure

Florida’s Everglades National Park recently received a $1 million donation from Toyota for its environmental education initiative. Along with the $1 million there will also be 5 cars donated by Toyota.

The donation will benefit more than 10,000 students annually via a number of initiatives including day program field trips and camping trips for grade school students; the K-12 Miccosukee Indian School program; in-park teacher workshops for day and camping programs; in-park special programs for other school groups and student organizations; and in-school teacher workshops.

Source: Toyota

The New York Times reported last week that many moms that have had a cesarean sections are now being denied private coverage or are being charged higher insurance premium by some insurance companies. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, according to the article, is one insurance company that charges higher rates for private insurance if a woman has had a cesarean section in the past five years. This is an issue for many women because there has been an increase in women undergoing cesarean sections.

Women who have expected to visit their obstetrician/gynecologist for care of their bodies are not feeling pressure to sign binding arbitration agreements or lose the care of a physician that they have been using for a while.

Doctors requiring that their patients sign binding arbitrations are saying that is to help lower healthcare coast by cutting back on the cost of malpractice insurance. Although there may be a video on many of the gynecologist and obstetrician groups using the binding arbitration video patients may be left with many questions.

In early April the St. Petersburg Times ran an article on how many obstetrics groups, including Tampa Bay Women’s Care, that are now requiring that their patients sign binding arbitration agreements. Tampa Bay Women’s care is a large healthcare group with several different locations throughout Tampa Bay and Orlando. Tampa Bay Women’s Care is not the only group now requiring binding arbitration agreement. The Woman’s Group in Tampa also has just recently introduced a binding arbitration agreement.

The care of patients has really turned into a business that requires more patient involvement than ever. Beyond being their own medical advocate when visiting the doctor’s office patients must now be their own legal advocate.

External Links:

Binding Mandatory Arbitration- National Association of Consumer Advocates
Information on binding arbitrations from a national organization of attorneys

The Woman’s Group Binding Arbitration

Tampa Bay Women’s Care Binding Arbitration

Parents, 3rd grade FCAT scores are now available for viewing online. All parents should be receiving or already received the login id and password for the FCAT parent network so that they can view their child’s scores online as they become available. In the area of the 3^rd grade FCAT, the state of Florida had 72% of its students with a score of 3 or higher on the FCAT. A score of 3 or higher is considered passing.

For the counties in the Tampa Bay, Florida area the break-down of student that passed the 3^rd grade FCAT:

• Citrus County: 81% of 1,136
• Hernando County: 76% of 1,802
• Hillsborough County: 71% of 14,924
• Manatee: 71% of 3,309
• Pasco County : 72% of 5,353
• Pinellas County: 72% of 7,898
• Polk County: 67% of 7,640
• Sarasota County: 83% of 3,245

Florida’s FCAT Parent Network

Adoptions from Vietnam to the United States is in danger of being temporarily suspended because of investigations that shown misuse of the system. Large numbers of Americans apply for adoption of Vietnamese children each year, and because of this the waiting list has become huge. Whenever there is a demand so high there also seems to always be corruption in the midst.

In one case a Vietnamese grandmother attempted to give her own grandchild up for adoption, but was unsuccessfully able to do so. Another case in this story told of a hospital that tried to give a baby up for adoption, citing that the mother had abandoned the child, but the mother was able to somehow recover her child.

Another area of concern is the number of citations of abandoned baby’s on adoption papers amounting to 85%. The U.S. officials believe that this huge number may be a sign of foul play and corruption.

More on Adoption from Vietnam

A study recently released showed that women that ate high energy food were more likely to produce male children over female children.

While the mechanism is not yet understood, it is known from in vitro fertilization research that higher levels of glucose, or sugar, encourage the growth and development of male embryos while inhibiting female embryos.

This makes me want to look back and see what I was actually eating during the time that I became pregnant with my children. My eating habits did change a bit by the time I became pregnant with my son, my third. One thing is that I had extra weight that I was trying to lose at the time. Who knows, there is always some theory on how to conceive a boy or girl.

Source: Yahoo News