Talk about making me feel like crap...

So last Friday Maddox went to his ear doctor. He goes every four months for a hearing test and to make sure his tubes are still in. It's speech evaluation time...finally. I asked about it at our last appointment. Then he had an informal speech eval from a good friend of Shawn's mom (a speech therapist), who wasn't concerned at that time. (6 months ago) Then at his two year checkup and shots his regualar doctor told me that some kids just talk later, blah, blah, blah. Now the ear doctor is all concerned, and told me that he should have at least 20 words and be putting 2 to 3 together, which I knew. I knew that, but everyone has been telling me that he'll talk when he's ready, and Shawn thinks the informal speech eval he got was good enough, etc. So the ear doctor made me feel like crap. It's not like you can just go and get a speech eval without a referral. I got Maddox an eval next Tuesday, which I am a little proud of because getting in that quickly is unheard of. I'm not, however, looking forward to the bills this will rack up. (He needs it, I'm getting it, and I'm paying for it, but I don't have to be happy about how much I'm paying for it) The speech eval alone is over $200, which goes straight to our insurance deductible. Then if he needs speech therapy (which I"m pretty sure he will because he only has 3 words) our insurance will only cover 20 visits per year. Something tells me that 20 visits, while it sounds like a lot, isn't that much. So I guess to make a long story short this whole thing is like a bad re-run of him getting tubes. They put you off and put you off until things get really bad. The more I think about the more it irritates me. If we would have gotten a formal speech eval when I wanted to Maddox would probably be talking by now. It also makes me feel like crap because I should have pushed the issue.