on insurance

I follow a fellow VBACer's blog (http://thefeministbreeder.com/) and she posted the other day about her insurance woes which got me thinking about my issues with insurance.

Her story in a nutshell is that her insurance plan changed and now doesn't cover her homebirth like she thought it would and she can't afford the thousands of dollars OOP that it would cost for a homebirth. Totally understandable and I can relate to how she feels.

When H got his new job we fully understood that the new job did not come with insurance (which was provided at 100% with his old job). We planned to get private insurance, but when I called to apply, I was told only one company in this state will provide maternity coverage. Well, we weren't planning on having any more kids, but I wanted to know that we had insurance just in case because I didn't want to take the risk of a huge bill if I ended up with another c/s if we got pregnant again. We knew then that if we had another baby, he/she would be born at home, but I just wanted the back-up since V's birth was well over $100k.

Well, the only company that offers maternity insurance in Oklahoma won't cover a woman with a prior cesarean, even if she has had a vaginal birth after the c/s. Totally sucks. So that left us with the option of no maternity coverage or going through my dad's business to get insurance since I work there for him one day a week. We applied for the private insurance, but V got denied completely because his medical records show that he "might have XYZ" but then says later that he does not and apparently the insurance company can't read and didn't realize it said he didn't have that (which, BTW, I had never even heard of). I was also denied anything relating to uterine surgery because of my cesarean. Well, V can't just not have insurance so we "chose" the group policy. Since it was FIVE TIMES more for insurance with the group policy than we would have with the private, for less coverage and higher co-pays, we decided we would just have that until we got the mess with the private company figured out. Well, in that time, I got pregnant so our whole family got denied coverage.

So, then we actually contemplated working the system a bit and getting legally separated so that the kids and I could be covered by the state and we would just pay for private insurance for H. Our homebirth would still not be covered, but at least we wouldn't have to pay thousands of dollars in the off chance that I ended up in a hospital, on top of the premiums we are paying for the insurance.

We decided that wasn't the right thing to do, and then found out it wouldn't work anyway because H can't get private insurance if he is expecting a child. (We found that out when we realized it would be cheaper monthly to get H and the kids private insurance and I just keep the group policy--no insurance company will do that since H is expecting a child).

So in the end, I feel like we are paying a crapton of money for insurance that we can't even use (won't cover the homebirth in network and out out of network deductible is way higher than the homebirth, plus we get a discount for not running it through insurance). I am thankful that we have the funds to pay for our birth (with cutting out other things), but it still pisses me off.

And then I think about the women who don't have the option of a group policy at all or don't have the money to pay for the birth (which is not cheap--it is costing us more than my other 2 births). I feel like the insurance companies are dictating how many children a woman can have. I mean if my dad didn't own a business that I worked for, we would be screwed. No insurance, no coverage for any of us, nothing. How many other families are in that situation? It really sucks, and I feel like there isn't a whole lot we can do about it. We need them and they know it.

too old to feel this young!

I totally don't feel like I am 27 years old. I don't feel old enough to have been out of high school for 10 years! I frequently think about how young I feel. I mean I don't feel old enough to be married and have 2 kids with one on the way. Sometimes I want to go do something I feel the urge to call my mom to make sure it is okay. I think can I really own a home and live with a boy???



Maybe it is because I got married young. Maybe it is because I didn't really have the "college experience". Maybe it is because I am just young at heart (ha!). It is just weird to think about how much older I am than I feel.

success

the other night H and I went to the Carrie Underwood concert and realized that she and I are about the same age. So on the way home, we were talking about it and H asked me jokingly why I wasn't successful like that with a record deal making hundreds of thousands a year. I told him probably because I can't sing :)

Seriously, though, it got me thinking about what success is. I mean I have friends from high school that we sort of consider successful because they are living and working in NYC or LA or somewhere other than here, but really are they any more successful than me? Does it matter if they are working at a law firm or waiting tables? Does it matter if they are miserable or happy? Does it matter if they went to college or not? What really makes us successful?

My 10 year high school reunion is next year and if I were to go, I wonder if I would be considered a success. I mean I went to college and I graduated, so I feel like I would get a point for that, but I don't work so do I lose a point? Or if you consider the little work I do, I work for my dad so even if I worked for him full time do I lose two? What about being happy with my choices. I love being a mom. I love being a SAHM. I love taking care of my kids, my husband and my home. It makes me happy and I hope it makes my family happy too. But I sort of feel like I lose a few points for that because I don't have some bigtime job and I don't make the big bucks.

At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what other people think. I feel like a success. When I peek in on my sleeping babies and they are resting with smiles on their faces I know I am doing something right. When I lay down in bed next to my husband and put my hand on his back, I feel at peace. In that moment, all is right in the world and I am successful.

Homebirth

I have been hearing a lot lately about how we are taking some huge risk by having our baby at home and it is really starting to wear on me. First, I just don't have the energy to put up a fight anymore. With 2 kids to care for and and one to grow inside, I am a tired lady! Second, it really hurts that my friends and family would think that we care so little about our family that we would put them in harms way. We have done our research about homebirth and we have decided that it is the safest option for us. We don't think we are taking a huge risk, we don't think we are being brave, we think that we are making an educated choice and taking control of how our child will come into this world.

Now, with that said, obviously we don't look down on people who choose hospitals to birth their babies. We don't judge them and tell them they are taking a huge risk by going to the hospital. We made that choice with 2 of our kids, and while I know that many hospital births are wonderful and empowering, that is not what we got from the hospital.

I don't think that women who choose an OB for care during pregnancy are being irresponsible or are crazy even though I didn't chose the OB route for our second two pregnancies. I just feel that, for me, the OB did more to harm then to help and she was really pretty unnecessary (had I not had a C/S that is).



And I don't understand why these people thing I am being so irresponsible by choosing a midwife and a homebirth. We are educated in birth and we trust in my body's ability to birth babies. We trust birth.


We do understand that there are risks associated with homebirth, but there are risks associated with hospital birth too. Just like when we chose VBAC over ERCS, we are choosing the set of risks we are most comfortable with. For our family, the risks that make more sense are those of a homebirth.

good mom/bad wife bad mom/good wife

I frequently feel torn between being a "good mom" and a "good wife." I feel like since I stay at home, I should keep the house clean, the laundry done, and a hot dinner on the table at 5pm, but when I do those things, I feel like it is at the sacrifice of my kids.

Today, I woke up at 6 am, made H lunch, and started to clean and organize the house. I payed bills and got the kitchen picked up before the kids even woke up and since V wasn't feeling great he camped on the couch this morning while M was napping and I went to work. I got stuff in our bedroom put away (we had just stored everything in there once we got carpet and got our living room put back together), I got the office organized, I put the photos from the last 3 years in a photo album (and I need to get another album because there are photos left and nowhere for them to go), I mopped the kitchen, and I folded some laundry. Once M woke up, I fed the kids lunch and put them down for afternoon naps. V said he wasn't tired (he was) so I told him he could lay on my bed and watch me fold laundry. Well, either Mama was right or really boring because he fell right asleep. Once I got the laundry all put away, I started on dinner. I made 2 lasagnas (I love to eat lasagna, but hate to make it because it is so time consuming to I froze one).

Our house is clean, the laundry is all done, and dinner was on the table when H got home from work, but I feel like I neglected the kids all day. I mean they were fed and changed, but emotionally, I feel like I let them down.

It is a daily struggle for me. I feel like if the house is a mess, I was a good mom, but if it is clean I wasn't. Sometimes I can get them involved in cleaning and picking up and make it a learning experience, but usually they get bored with me and go play together somewhere else.

Tomorrow we are going out so I know it will be more fun for them, and I know in the long run, their lives won't be forever altered because I spent one day cleaning the house, but I can't help but think that when they are 30, I would so much rather them remember having fun playing with Mama is a so-so clean house, than remember playing alone while Mama mopped the floors.

scared

Tonight I went to see a girlfriend who had just had a baby. She has a daughter just a bit younger than V and they love to play together so we get together often. We have talked a lot about birth and such because, well first, its me and I love to talk birth, but second, she was really disappointed in her first birth experience. She was induced and said it was just really traumatic for her. She was the first person I actually talked to who had her baby vaginally and still had a traumatic experience. So, we talked about what she wanted to do differently this time. She decided she didn't want to be induced and she didn't want an epidural. Well, she went into labor on her own (three days after her "EDD") and pushed out her 9lb 7oz baby sans epidural. She is amazing!

But the thing is she said it was terrible. She said it was horrible and painful and she wouldn't do it without drugs again. It really made me scared. I mean I know that her baby was a pound a 1/2 bigger than mine and I don't think I would have a baby that big since my other 2 were smaller, but I started to think, what if I was just lucky the first time?

My first labor didn't hurt. Really, it didn't, but what if the second one does? What if I can't handle it? What if it is really long and scary and what I just can't hack it. It scares me.

We talked tonight (while I got to hold her precious bundle) about why some labors are so painful and some are not and the only conclusion we could really come to is what we compare it to.

I compared labor to a c/s. Labor hurt nothing like c/s recovery for me. She compared labor without meds to labor with an epidural. Still, though, now I have labor to compare it to and I am scared I won't have a short labor, or that I will because shorter labors are generally more intense.

Basically I just need to get these feelings out. I know in the end, drugs are not an option for me so I will have to deal with what I am handed. I just hope I can handle it.

sibling love

The other day the kids and I were reading books and after reading one about a baby, I asked V if he wanted a new baby. He got this really sad look on his face and said "No, Mama! I like M. I want to keep my sister!"

He totally thought we were making a trade or something. I just wonder why he assumed we were trading her and not him :)

Then at dinner, I gave her some sliced peaches and he said "Be careful, M. Only take small bites so you don't choke."

He really loves her.

And I know she loves him because after she nurses every morning she goes right to him and gives him hugs and kisses.

I just hope they still feel the same way in 15 years!