Day 577: The Birth Experience, Part 4: Health Insurance

When we walked away from our physician in Nashville it didn’t make much sense for Serena to find another doctor there… only to leave a couple months later to move to Atlanta. So, the decision was made to push up her move… which lead to a certain amount of complications.

You see, Serena and I were not legally married at the time, so when she left her job in Nashville she would also be walking away from her health insurance… pregnant… without any health insurance. Our original plan was for Serena to stay in Nashville until around Christmas time, at which time we would float her Cobra insurance for a month or two until she had Grayson. But, when we pushed up her move from December to September, the out of pocket cost for Cobra was simply too much. We could float a month or two… but not five or six months.

We weighed our options and decided to move forward with the move without insurance.

But, for fun, I decided to challenge my insurance provider a little with a very pointed phone call. First, I ask what kind of coverage Serena would get if we got married right away. They informed me she would get full coverage except for the pregnancy. “You won’t cover the pregnancy?” “No, sir, the pregnancy is a preexisting condition.” WHAT? You have to be kidding me.

Composure. Time for some fun.

“Okay, then I would like to just cover the baby.”

“Once the baby is born you can submit---“

“No, I would like to cover the baby now, can you help me add him to my policy.”

“Sir, we cannot add the baby to your policy until it is born.”

“Why?”

“We can’t cover the baby until the baby is alive.” The woman on the phone actually used the word “alive”… with was very unfortunate for her.

“But he is alive.”

“Sir, but your child has not been born.”

“Sure, but we can’t have an abortion either. The United States Government considers my baby a life, why aren’t you? Since he is a life, I am his father, born or not, and I wish to cover him with my insurance.”

I know, I know… this is a very brutal argument… but I do feel very strongly about this issue. As a society, if we are going to take the time to define when a life begins, that decision should be binding. If a life begins before birth, then dang it, insurance companies should honor the unborn child as a dependent.

In the end?

“Sir, we do not consider your baby to be alive until it has been born.”

“Does the birth need to be vaginally or c-section?” (That’s right! I ended on one last dig!)

So, the big question is this… what was I trying to accomplish by my challenge? In a perfect world… a utopian world that only exists in my mind, Blue Cross/Blue Shield would have offered to cover Grayson’s birth, which means, by default they would cover Serena only for the birth… but under one very harsh condition:

I would sign a promissory note. After the birth a paternity test would be performed. If for whatever reason Grayson was not mine, I would becomes responsible for all birth expenses. And of course, when the paternity test determines Grayson is mine, BC/BS would take care of everything as they should.

Anyway, if you haven’t glazed over by now and aren’t drooling on your keyboards, I bet you are wondering what happened next. Well, since Serena was pregnant, unmarried and unemployed when she moved to Atlanta she qualified for Medicaid. Seriously… but that only lasted for a couple months and it helped up bridge the gap. Ultimately, through the temp agency Serena was working for, she was offered a permanent part-time position. Serena demanded the guy wanting to hire her pay for her Cobra insurance (on top of her hourly wage). He agreed. I was amazed.

Day 576: Mardi Gras

In honor of Mardi Gras I thought I would take an opportunity to gloat about New Orleans’s Super Bowl victory.

Okay, now that the gloating is over, I would like to tip my have to New Orleans in another way. By, praising Disney’s new film, “The Princess and the Frog”. Now, I see a lot of movies… before kids, I used to go to the movies at least once a week… but now? Well… I’ve only been to the theatre a handful of times in the last twelve months… and most of the time they are to see children’s movies with Grayson… some good, some okay, some not so good. But, in the realm of children’s movies, “The Princess and the Frog” is excellent. It was an interesting balance of Tennessee Williams, August Wilson, and Classic Walt Disney. Two thumbs up

In my movie geek opinion, if Pixar’s “Up” wasn’t in the running for the “Best Animated Film” Oscar, “The Princess and the Frog” would be the hands down winner. The positive press surrounding the film is warranted. Gone are the days of Brother Bear… This is a solid film with a solid script, more reminiscent of how Disney used to make films.

It borrows a lot of elements and is pretty self aware about it, even including the classic “Frog Prince” fable, which wasn't just a theme skirted around, but a major story element front and center. It was complete with John Goodman’s character being called “Big Daddy” and shouting “Stella” at the top of his lungs… it was a cheap joke, but still made me laugh. On the other hand, it’s homage to jazz-era New Orleans was beautiful and Terrance Howard (from Hustle and Flow) should teach classes in voice acting. His cameo as the hard working father who is motivated only by his love for his family was moving. And the more classic Disney elements like the Jazz trumpet playing Gator and the Cajan, Zydico playing, Fireflies reminded me of “Jungle Book”… while also capturing a love story reminiscent to “Cinderella”.

For my friends with kids, this is a must see movie.

For my friends without kids who follow movies, I would recommend giving this one a view… it’s not a skipable children’s movie.

Day 575: President’s Day

Honestly folks… I have a brand new respect for President’s day… My two weeks of paternity leave are over… but I get to stay home for just one more day. Oh, how brilliant it is. Thanks for the timing Gilliam!

Day 574: Happy Valentine’s Day

Serena, I love you babe! Thank you so much for the gift of our boys… and putting up with me.

Day 573: Truly Great Chocolate

Serena and I are pretty spoiled. You can get some truly great Chocolate over here. And the fact we have family and friends in Switzerland really helps too. A few days ago, Serena and I were gorging ourselves with fabulous chili chocolates and some ginger chocolate we picked up from the store, when Serena pondered, “I wonder why you can’t find chocolate this great in America… you would thing American’s would have discerning tastes when it comes to chocolate.”

After thinking about it for a moment, I responded, “Yes, but American’s also eat Kraft singles.”

Serena: “Good point.”

Day 572: SchutzHappens Family Video - January 2010, "Fish & CHiPs"

Day 571: The Birth Experience, Part 3: The 1st OB Doctor

Throughout the journey, our experience with OB’s has been both good and bad. The fact our first experience was so bad is probably why we are so opinionated about this subject today. But, at the same time it is very hard to vilify our first OB, I am sure she is very nice… and probably an excellent physician… but we wouldn’t really know since we barely ever got any time with her… and when she was around we were convinced she had some sort of social disorder which didn’t allow her to volunteer information or exhibit signs of tenderness.

The lack of these two traits became a very big deal with us.

When we first found out we were pregnant with Grayson, Serena was still working in Nashville. We ultimate had plans for her to move to Atlanta and have the baby, but for the time being she was going to stay in Nashville. She had only been in Nashville for a couple months and being new to the town she trusted her primary care physician and made an appointment with the referred OB. We’ll call her, Dr. Sourpuss.

At the time we were rocking the long-distance relationship and I rearranged my schedule and drove up from Atlanta for the appointment… which proved to be incredible disappointing.

After being relegated to the waiting room for two hours we were finally called to an examination room where we waited another thirty minutes. When the doctor arrived she quickly introduced herself, confirmed the due date, listened to Grayson heartbeat, wrote a prescription for prenatal vitamins, took a breath, and asked, “do you have any questions?” The whole scene went down so quickly, Serena was stunned to silence when the doctors question escaped her lips. After the fact Serena was like, “Do I have any questions? Of course I have questions, but where the hell do I even begin.” But in the situation, I don’t remember Serena having a question. But, what I do remember is the doctor asking about Serena’s thoughts about preferred method of delivery… when the doctor started going through the options, she led with “scheduled c-section.” That I remember.

Being our first visit to the office we believed the excuses the nurses were giving us… after all is you’re a baby doctor, people are very forgiving when you say the doctor is late because she is delivering a baby. And if she really was at a birth and tired, as we justified, we forgave her cold gruffness. But, in reality, we didn’t catch her on a bad day. Serena was consistently scheduled for appoints that wouldn’t actually start for hours… and Dr. Sourpuss was never any help when it came to Serena’s questions and concerns.

Serena quickly realized if she really wanted to know what was going on with her body, she was going to have to do the research herself, and rather than following blindly, we began to question.

What we found out was the following:

There seem to be two very different opposing views regarding childbirth.

1. Childbirth is something that is perfectly natural and women have been doing it successfully for years without assistance… so let’s keep medical intervention to a minimum.

2. Childbirth is an illness that should be dealt with through surgical means.

Now, Serena and I of course lean towards option one, but we also recognize the advances and benefits surgical methods have given to childbirth… especially when it comes to lowering the mortality rates of both mother and baby. We understand that birth can get complicated. But, we also feel that society has become too reliant on these surgical means. We choose to have our babies at birth centers associated with hospitals just in case. And thankfully, we haven’t needed to tap into those services. But, just because we are at a hospital doesn’t mean we need to have their surgical services shoved down our throat either.

Anyway, in the end Serena made the decision that she wanted to have a natural childbirth with Grayson and in order to do that, we also recognized Dr. Sourpuss would not be able to give us the kind of support in this decision as we needed. So… it became time to move on… earlier than anticipated.