Insurance

Insurance is boring and I'm glad I don't have to think about my health insurance very often. It even seems silly to talk about it here, but it has been a big focus lately in my day to day life.

My deductible is low, the out of pocket is low and the 20% co pay in between seems fair. It covers what I need, and I've just never really had a problem. Also, I don't pay for it, although it is not the company's group policy, the funds for my insurance are supplied by my employer.

However, when I realized that it was a non-maternity individual policy, things got real...really fast.  All of my pre-natal visits have been out-of-pocket. All of my ultrasounds have been out-of-pocket. And my labor and delivery, we pre-paid for it to get a discount. After the crazy high cost of IVF out-of-pocket to put the kid in there in the first place, to then have additional charges just to get the kid out healthy seems crazy.

At every doctor's visit, every blood draw, every screening, we are asked why we don't apply for medicaid. Even though I knew I wouldn't qualify, I looked into it, I don't qualify, I make too much money. I have great insurance actually, just not maternity coverage.

I finally called the insurance company that handles the group policy for my employer. I wanted to determine if I could add the group policy as a secondary coverage to get the maternity coverage. However, I am outside of the enrollment period, and the insurance coverage sucks. It has a much higher deductible and much higher out-of-pocket, and the principle is even higher. However, I thought it would be better than having no insurance coverage at all.

When I found out that I didn't qualify for the group policy, our representative told me about the State Pool for insurance coverage. I qualify specifically because I have an individual policy that does not have maternity coverage and because I am currently pregnant. I would pay twice as much as my current policy for the same deductible (that I still have to meet)  but it would have maternity benefits. I applied on July 15.

I found out yesterday that I was accepted for the coverage, I will pay for it for the remaining months of my pregnancy and it will cover me for 21 days after delivery including any complications for the baby during that time period. I plan to keep my individual coverage so that I don't have to try to get back on it after pregnancy.

This is simply fantastic news for us. I was starting to fear labor due to the possibility of pain management not being available due to cost rather than choice. I was having anxiety over the potential cost of a c-section, not the potential procedure itself.

I really am so relieved, once the policy is active on Aug 1st, I will have to seek out a refund for the money we prepaid, but even if we don't get it back, I still feel better about everything in the long run.

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I've uploaded some scans on one of the pages up top and also updated my timeline. I'm hopeful to retrieve the bump pics from my husband's phone so that I can post them in something that resembles order.

Also, I've been working on the nursery. Surprisingly there wasn't much to do, and there really isn't much left to do. But I hope to get some pics on here of that stuff too.

26 weeks this Thursday, AGHHHHH, can you believe it?

24 weeks

I was just going to dive right into a post but I thought I'd better explain my absence.

At first, I didn't have access to our computer. Nate was completing his final projects before graduation and was using the computer every free minute that I had. This was a great excuse to step away and not think about composing a post or even just whipping one out and throwing it up here

Then I decided it was kind of nice not to have to update each week with very little noticeable change in symptoms. The fact that I didn't have any symptoms made me very panicky. Weeks 12-18 were much of the same, I was growing, my belly and boobs getting bigger, but all in all there just wasn't anything going on. Nate wouldn't let me buy anything or even think about how the nursery was going to be decorated as it was all too much for him in case something bad should happen.

Then at 18 weeks, I started to feel real movement, not just the quickening of early movement, but real kicks, punches and shifts. I wanted to get on here and shout to the high heavens how happy I was to have my first real sign that I was pregnant and not just getting fat. I found excuse after excuse not to post.

It's not that I have too much pregnancy after infertility guild, although that is part of it, I just didn't have any real need to post.

Then at 21 weeks, at the anatomy scan, we found out that we are having a normal healthy boy. I baked a cake for work to announce it with a dyed blue interior. I posted on facebook (both at 12 weeks and at 21 weeks). I got my fill of congratulations and again didn't need to post here.

After that I decided that I would wait until 24 weeks to post again, that is today! 24 weeks exactly on July 11, 2013, my 30th birthday!!!!!

We made it to viability, although I hope he stays in much longer, I'm also hoping that from here on out things are smooth sailing.

I get daily kicks and thumps and a weird knocking on my cervix that I think might be hiccups?!?!!?

I've started to decorate the nursery, we've had many things given to us, so there is relatively little to do/buy as compared to starting from scratch.

I've also decided to cloth diaper. We'll be using prefolds with covers in addition to a few all in ones. Surprisingly, there is an active local cloth diaper support group that utilizes facebook for questions and trading and whatnot.

Finally, I'm in the process of pursuing different health insurance coverage. My employer provides group coverage, but it has a very high deductible and a very high out of pocket due to her coverage of herself (who has had cancer) and employees working on visas. Thus, I refused the company policy and have an individual policy that I pay for with what she would otherwise use for my coverage. It gets me great coverage with low deductibles and low out of pocket expenses. However, unlike the group policy my employer provides, individual policies in New Mexico are not required to have maternity coverage, so they do not. Whether or not I truely believe Obamacare will solve our countries healthcare crisis, it will solve my problem with maternity coverage, but not until 2014. About 2 months too late. Until then, it turns out (as I found out last week) that I may qualify for state pool insurance coverage, which I will pay for out of pocket, for full coverage including maternity. Maternity should not be a pre-existing condition for this policy, and will terminate 20 days after delivery but will cover me and the baby. I do not qualify for medicaid but this medicaid-like policy should really help out. The only other glitch is that we already paid out of pocket for a discounted rate for pre-natal care and delivery, which we may not get back. This policy should cover hospital stay, medication and any complications, which is really all I could hope for.

I bring up finances because we have opted for a more natural hospital delivery in hopes of minimizing some of the cost. I'm looking into all of my options including a doula and hypnobabies to achieve this goal.

I'm at work writing this, so I have no access to my pictures, photo post to follow!