Our Final Doctor's Visit and New Birthday Plan

Yes, that's right! I will not be seeing my ob/gyn for the rest of my pregnancy! But before I explain, I just wanted to give a quick little update from our last (and final) visit.
We saw Dr. Wise, she was very nice. I gained a pound since my last appointment, heart rate was good, blood pressure good, tummy size good, everything is normal and progressing as it should.

Our bigger news this week came as a shock and eventually as an exciting change.

For those of you who might know, after Matt and I were married we were no longer covered under our parents' insurance and since Matt was still a student, we did not have our own coverage. We figured we would be okay for a few months. As soon as Matt started his new job in June, we had insurance. Which we still have and is actually a pretty good policy.Unfortunately I got pregnant in March. Since we had no insurance at that time, our insurance policy would not cover the pregnancy. "Pre-exisitng Condition". We have known this since June, and knew we would have to pay out of pocket.

I mentioned in an earlier post that we have already paid our OB ($4,500), all that was left was the hospital's bill. Which we naievely assumed could not be more than the doctor would charge. Boy were we wrong. I called Northwestern to see about pre-paying our hospital bill and found out that we would be charged $15,000 - $17,000 for a routine vaginal delivery and 2 day stay. That was not an expense we were prepared to undertake. After a stressful (and tearful) 24 hours of researching posssibilities and hitting some dead ends, we have hopefully found a solution that we are actually pretty excited about!

Tonight we have a meeting with Cynthia, a certified nurse midwife in Oak Park, IL (about 10 miles away). We found her through West Suburban Midwives and fortunately they were willing to take me so late in my pregnancy (almost 35 weeks!). I will still deliver at a hospital, West Suburban Medical Center. The biggest difference is that I will not be delivered by an OB, but by the midwife, unless there are complications. In which case, there is an overseeing OB that will step in. We will be getting most of our fee back from Dr. Friedell. Between that and what we had set aside for the hospital bill, we should have it covered! No suprises this time.

I will post more about our new birth plan after we meet Cynthia tonight. Fingers crossed that it goes well and we leave feeling good about our decision.