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December 18, 2003
I want to write about the TFY Chicago trip. I really do. And I will, I promise! But I have to admit to myself and everyone else that it is just not my highest priority right now. I looked back and laughed at my promise that I would get my Chicago entry out quickly. I’ve come to the realization that, if I was one of my readers (do I have any left?), I’d rather hear about my life now instead of waiting forever to hear about something that happened over a month ago. So I’m going to throw an entry together about what’s been going on for the last month…hold on to your hats, it's not pretty!
The past month has been one of the most stressful times of my life. Really, that could be said of the entire fall, but the worst parts have been since I got back from Chicago. I should give a disclaimer first that I am not ignoring our wonderful blessings, including this new baby on the way, our good health, our family and friends, etc. Heaven knows that looking on the bright side has been all that has gotten me through some days. But I feel like I can be grateful for those blessings and also feel that some parts of my life truly suck right now.
About 2 hours after I got back from Chicago, Derek headed back to Omaha for another week of work. I should mention at this point that him working in Omaha is turning out to be a pretty bad deal for us financially—better than if he were unemployed like many of his former coworkers, but bad enough that we are losing money every week because of his travel expenses. And trust me when I say that as a young married family depending on a single income and trying to pay for a mortgage, student loans, credit card bills, and an impending birth, we were not exactly rolling in dough to start with. So anyway, by the time he got to Omaha on that particular morning, Derek’s truck was barely running. He got it to a shop and we learned we had to put a new transmission in it. The truck in question is an old work truck that we paid about $2200 for—not something that you would normally put much money into—but at the time we couldn’t see many other choices. So we got the best deal we could for a rebuilt transmission, borrowed some money from family, and got it fixed. Over the next 2 weekends, Derek did some more work on it himself and it was finally running great.
In the meantime, of course, I was a hormonal, pregnant, emotional wreck as I tried to pay all of the other bills while pondering the massive amount of debt that we were slowly sinking into. You know how every marriage has one big stress point? Well, money is ours. And let me tell you, when you are dealing with everything long distance, the stress is just that much greater. It’s hard not to get upset, because I chose to share my life (and all of this crap) with my husband, and now I am getting stuck dealing with it all by myself instead. Sure, this is only temporary, but you try telling yourself that on a really bad day and see if it makes you feel any better!
Just as that situation began to calm down, issues with our health insurance came to a head. Oh, did I mention that we don’t have any health insurance right now? Nope, not since Derek went to the new job in Omaha. We’re paying for it, but apparently in some really big insurance policy book somewhere it says that people who have insurance through the carpenter’s union can have that money deducted from their paycheck every week but they must build up 300 hours before coverage begins. Okay, so that’s about 2 months of lag time and of course the coverage (which you’ve paid for) is not retroactive. But, the company you’re working for doesn’t have to pay your money to the insurance company until a certain date of the next month. In Kansas, that’s the 10th of the month, but in Nebraska it’s the 25th. So there’s an extra month of lag time to get your insurance. But that’s not all, folks! When you, for instance, work in Nebraska but have insurance in Kansas, the money first gets paid to the Nebraska union and then they have an entire month to send that money to the Kansas union. So, drum roll please, that makes a FOUR month lag time between when we began paying for insurance and when it will actually begin to cover us.
Being responsible and intelligent adults, we became aware of this situation and looked into other ways to have coverage during that time. Private insurance was out of the question since we are already paying a good chunk of money for insurance that we’re not yet getting. However, we were optimistic that situations like this are why there are social service programs like Medicaid, state insurance, etc. Given that we have a child, and I’m pregnant, and we are basically flat broke—it seemed like a no-brainer that we could get coverage. So I dutifully filled out lots of paperwork and made copies of 3 months of paycheck stubs and all of that, only to be told that Aden can have coverage, but not the rest of us, even his pregnant mother and unborn sibling. Why? Because we make too much money. I don’t remember the exact timing of this letter, but it coincided very closely with our scramble to find a way to pay for both a transmission and, you know, silly things like the roof over our head and food on the table.
Let me tell you, it’s very scary to not have any health insurance. One major accident, one illness, and… well, I don’t even want to think about it. And even the most basic doctor visits get put off because you’re not sure how you’ll pay for them. I can see why babies are born every day to women who’ve had no prenatal care. I could go on quite a little tangent about how there's no way we live in the "greatest country on earth" when we do not even take care of the basic medical needs of our citizens, but I'll spare you. Thank goodness that our midwife works out payment plans and the OB office won’t bill us for anything until after the baby is born (and we have insurance coverage).
Soooo… add all of that stress on to the fact that this pregnancy has been very hard on me, much more than I expected. First I had nausea like nothing I’d ever experienced before, and as soon as it abated I found myself with absolutely no appetite at all. Then when I started to feel like eating again I found myself losing my lunch several times a week with no warning whatsoever. In the meantime I’ve had headaches, lots of them, and steadily increasing pelvic separation pain. And my emotions have been completely out of control, often bordering for days at a time on what I would consider to be depression. But no matter how I feel, I still have to be a good mom to Aden, and I have to keep the house livable, and take the dog in and out, and handle all of those other adult responsibilities that we all have.
Okay, so let’s see, by the weekend before Thanksgiving I was feeling better, physically and emotionally. Finally, a break! I had an awesome appointment with my midwife Fran on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. The baby felt and sounded great and I measured about 1 ½ weeks ahead again. She told us that she usually “gooses” the baby to make sure their heartbeat is reactive, and I thought that was really funny. “Your baby doesn’t like being goosed!” Fran joked, and I replied that I couldn’t blame it. Fran was able to recommend a great homeopathic cream called Traumeel that really takes the edge off my pelvic separation pain. It’s meant for inflammations, arthritis, tendonitis, sprains, etc. and as Fran explained it, the pain I’m feeling is basically a cartilage injury as if my pelvis was sprained. The cream doesn’t make the pain disappear, but it does make it more bearable and I would highly recommend it. So there’s a little highlight before I start moaning and groaning again. :)
The week of Thanksgiving I had an awful cold that turned into a sinus infection right as Derek has to leave to go back to work. Wouldn’t you know it? Aden had a touch of the same cold but luckily he wasn’t too cranky, just a little quieter and cuddlier than normal—not bad characteristics when mama is sick and can barely take care of herself! Bless my mom for coming up one night and staying the next day to let me rest. I needed that break so badly and I cried when she left. I will say that losing my sense of smell for the greater part of a week was an odd blessing, and I didn’t relish that first whiff of poopy diaper once my nose finally cleared out, LOL!
Derek was home on December 5th for the long-awaited ultrasound. First and foremost I worried that the baby wouldn’t be okay, so of course seeing a healthy baby was the most important thing to me. But I’ve also felt really sure all along that this baby is a girl, and even though I’ve tried to stay neutral and keep that feeling to myself Aden has been fairly consistent in saying there was a sister in my tummy and calling the baby “her” without any encouragement from me. So I was really hoping that the ultrasound would reveal that I was having a daughter! Derek didn’t really want to know the gender, so that led to a lot of long talks and some soul-searching on my part, wondering if it was really fair to find out the gender when one partner didn’t want to know? In the end he made it easy on me, saying very honestly that even though he didn’t want to know, he respected that I did and he felt like because I was the one carrying the baby my vote could “outweigh” his, so to speak, with no hard feelings on his part. But I was really nervous about the gender issue the night before! I tried to prepare myself that it was certainly possible that we were having another little boy, or that we might not find out anything about the gender at all.
As the ultrasound began I was feeling content about whatever we would (or wouldn’t) find out, because nothing mattered compared to the excitement of seeing a healthy baby on that screen. Nothing that is, until the technician started moving the wand around the baby’s bottom and I could clearly see, without any words from her, that I was looking at labial folds between my baby’s legs. It was just as amazing as the moment at Aden’s birth when I announced that he was a boy. I was absolutely overcome with emotions as I looked at that screen and realized that I am really having a daughter! I’m going to be the mom to a daughter! Wow.
Later that weekend we had another midwife appointment, and this time Fran came to our house. It was so great having her there in our space, chit-chatting on the couch with our dog at her feet, showing her around the house, and then being on my own bed when she did the physical parts of the exam. Let me tell you, my blood pressure has never been so low! When we were listening to the baby’s heartbeat I tried to picture Dr. Haun in my bedroom for one of my prenatal and the picture was so incongruous that I almost laughed out loud. The neatest part of the visit occurred as were listening to the baby’s heartbeat. Fran had to kind of hold the baby in place so she wouldn’t squirm around and move too deep to hear. Then, once Fran had figured the heart rate, she left the Doppler on the baby and removed her other hand so the baby was free. “Listen,” she said, “she’s going to calm down now that I stopped messing with her.” And sure enough, we could all hear the heartbeat slowing down as the baby relaxed. :)
Our wonderful weekend was over too soon though, and Derek headed back to Omaha for an extra-long stretch. We planned for him to be up there from the 8th to the 20th so he could work overtime and then take the entire week of Christmas off. We figured it would be a tough two weeks, but all of the time together at Christmas would be worth it. Well, we had no idea how tough it would be! On the evening of the 9th he called me at dinnertime and I knew instantly from his voice that it was bad news. He’d had an accident in the snow and ice and wrecked his truck, new transmission and all, into a light pole. Thank goodness he was fine and nobody else was hurt, but all that financial stress just crashed down on us again and hasn’t lifted since. His truck was basically totaled—the frame bent, the front axle bent, one wheel well smashed, one tire blown, one headlight gone, etc. But, here’s the real kicker… we didn’t have full coverage insurance on it. Only liability. Who needs expensive full coverage on a crappy old work truck? But after we put the transmission in we had decided that we would add full coverage after the holidays, whether we could easily afford it or not. Too little, too late…
So last week was the absolute worst, the culmination of all the previous crap. How were we ever going to find the money to fix the truck or replace it? How was Derek going to get home, or even to work every day? What the heck were we going to do and why did it feel like the universe just had it in for us? What were we doing wrong to be in this situation, anyway? I had a big ol’ breakdown over all of that. Poor Aden, whenever he sees me crying he gives me long hugs and then asks if I feel better. :) Things are all falling into place again, and we’ll get by like we always do, but I don’t think I can take one more thing. I feel like we’re rich in the things that matter, I really do, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything… but, just for a change, could we be rich in ways that pay the bills too?
So, with all of that finally recounted, I have to admit that I’m trying really hard to get into the Christmas spirit. It seems to have left my body completely. I’m going up to Omaha today to pick up Derek, so at least we will all be together again soon. Then the rounds of family gatherings will commence and we will bounce from one house to another like pinballs, when all I really want to do is curl up in a big cocoon with my husband and son and never leave the house again. They are the biggest blessings I have, and I can’t be thankful enough for them. So happy holidays everyone, and remember to hold your blessings tight too.
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