A Pre-Existing Condition

I hate medical insurance.

Don't get me wrong, I like having medical insurance, I just hate dealing with it. Recently I had to change insurance plans and switch to my hubby's plan. This happened to coincide with my last day of work though it didn't actually have anything to do with my job (other than my not having an employer's plan to switch to), it had to do with my extended student benefits ending. Since I'm getting ready to pop a kid out any day now it's kind of important that I have medical insurance when that happens. I've dealt with changing plans before so I worked with hubby and got him (and his HR person) the necessary paperwork to prove I was losing coverage on my existing plan, otherwise known in the medical insurance world as a qualifying event. In another twist of coincidence the timing coincided with hubby's plan's open enrollment period, but the qualifying event ensured that didn't matter and I could go on it regardless of the plan's regularly scheduled enrollment period.

The other thing tied to a qualifying event is continuous coverage, which is required to keep new insurance plans from slapping a "pre-existing condition waiting period" on you. In case you hadn't heard pregnancy is a pre-existing condition from an insurance company's point-of-view, and taking on a new member and immediately having to pay for a delivery isn't something insurance companies particularly want to do. I knew this and tried VERY HARD to supply the paperwork to hubby's HR person to make sure the pre-existing condition period would get waived... And sure enough today we received a letter from the insurance company saying based on their records I have a one-year waiting period for pre-existing conditions. SIGH. Hubby talked to his HR person and it appears somehow somewhere lines got crossed and the paperwork he gave her was just to get me on the plan, now we have to submit separate paperwork to the insurance company to deal with the pre-existing condition mess. Thankfully I know enough about medical insurance to keep any piece of paper I ever receive that says "Certificate of Insurance" on it, so I put everything together and tomorrow proof that I've had continuous coverage for the past 3 years will be going out in the mail. (Technically I only need to prove continuous coverage for 1 year but I'm going for overkill just because.) Even though we're dealing with it, based on the timing of everything I'd bet you real money that the paperwork won't be processed in time (since insurance companies aren't exactly known for lightning fast reflexes when it comes to processing paperwork), claims will be denied and we'll have to call everyone everywhere and tell them to resubmit claims and process everything again. I can't wait.

Oh, Come On!

Hubby and I started our day at 7:00 this morning visiting a couple of garage sales in our neighborhood. I got an email on our neighborhood list yesterday about some multi-family sales with baby stuff going on today around the corner from us, and since hubby had to leave before 7:30 for a work-related training thing today that meant hitting them when they started, which isn't a bad thing for garage sales, anyway. The last time there were garage sales hubby ended up bringing home a bunch of great stuff for only a few dollars (things like toys and a diaper pail and a toilet trainer, which we'll need eventually), so we wanted to take the opportunity to try again. We got some more toys, a grocery cart cover for Kidlet to sit in, and a couple books, which the woman said to just take. When we thanked her I pointed to my stomach and said, "He thanks you, too." She said, "Oh, I hadn't noticed!" I'm 3 weeks away from my due date now so her comment elicited the title of this post from me: "Oh, come on!" I know I haven't shown much through the entire pregnancy—at 7 months I was standing in front of someone at work and mentioned something about being pregnant and he said, "What, you're pregnant?"—but come on, surely I look pregnant and not just fat by now! Sigh.

For those of you who aren't aware being 3 weeks from my due date means I am now considered full-term—or will be as of tomorrow, to be exact. That's a HUGE milestone and a huge relief: It means if anything happened now I could be induced without having to worry about having a preterm baby, and it means I could safely go into labor naturally myself at any time. Not that anyone has asked me and I know I have no control over it whatsoever, but it'd be really nice if Kidlet decided to be born naturally between 39 and 40 weeks, that'd be perfect. Again, not that anyone is asking me, but his coming before 38 weeks would be very inconvenient: That'd be next week, which is my last week of work (yay!) and hubby is on closing shift through the July 4th weekend at the park so he could be a little harder to reach if I really need him. (I plan to have the park superintendent's home phone number with me over the holiday weekend in case I can't reach him, just in case anyone is wondering.) It'd also be nice to have a real week off from everything after I'm done with work, so if Kidlet waits until a little closer to my due date that'd be nice. As the doctor we saw yesterday said, at this point everything is going well so we'll just see what happens.

Hose

I know, I've done a horrible job of keeping up with this blog lately. Oh well. To summarize: I'm 8-months pregnant now (35 weeks) and doing fine, heading down the home stretch and looking forward to having kidlet on the outside rather than on the inside. I have three weeks of work left and then I'll be on maternity leave. That about sums it up.

So let's talk about hose. No, not the garden variety, I'm talking about maternity support hose—you haven't lived until you've worn them. One thing I've dealt with for about half the pregnancy is very swollen ankles and feet. The technical term is edema, otherwise known that-which-makes-your-feet-look-like-tubers. I was advised by my doctor a while ago to start wearing support hose to help with it, and she suggested I just wear knee-highs since that's all I really needed. Unfortunately, the knee-highs made my knees look like grapefruits because they were tight right below my knees. At my appointment today the doctor suggested I switch to full maternity support hose since the knee-highs may have been doing more bad than good. Support hose are actually a medical item worthy of a prescription, which is a good thing since maternity support hose in particular cost a small fortune. ($92 per pair, if anyone is interested.) Thankfully, my insurance covers them so we paid much less than that at the medical supply store where we got them.

I'm not a huge fan of pantyhose, anyway, and rarely wear them except occasionally in the winter with a nice dress for church. Support hose are a whole different matter: Regular pantyhose stretch; support hose don't. I'd been having a hard time getting the knee-highs on lately but I usually managed on my own. When we got home with the full maternity hose today there was no way I could get them on by myself, and it still took 20 minutes with hubby's help. Not fun at all. I don't know if I'd be able to get them on by myself without being 8-months pregnant and now I'm thinking it's probably never going to be an option. I'm supposed to wear them all day every day until delivery, so that means on days hubby works opening shift we may both have to get up extra early so he can help me get them on. (I don't have to sleep in them, thankfully.) And did I mention they itch? Yeah, not surprisingly they itch some.

I'm thankful I only have to wear them for a few weeks at this point and not a few months, but that's as close to the bright side of things I'm gonna get. And, in reality, I am thankful that this is really just another pregnancy annoyance I have to deal with and not something ultimately significant that affects the baby. God willing it'll stay that way for the remainder of the pregnancy and we'll have a healthy baby boy in due time.

A New Toy

We have a new toy:

We've talked about getting a canoe for a while. Last week we went on a "babymoon" and spent a couple days at a Bed & Breakfast at a state park. The B&B has a private lake and a few boats guests can take out at their leisure, so the afternoon we got there we took a canoe out on the lake. Hubby sat in the stern and paddled while I sat in the bow and enjoyed the ride; it was wonderful. So I said okay, we could get a canoe. Hubby had actually already seen this one on Craigslist and when we got home it was still available, so he called the seller and made arrangements to check it out, and on Friday morning he came home with it. (He also prepared to get it by getting a paddle and a car kit to carry the canoe on his car's roof rack, since a 14-ft. canoe isn't something you can just throw in the back seat.) One thing hubby particular liked about this canoe is its paint job: In case you can't tell from the picture it's camouflaged, and hubby plans to use it for duck hunting. (Apparently the seller's son did the paint job, he used some stencils and it came out really well.) It also came with an attachment for an outboard motor, which hubby may get someday down the road. (UPDATE: Hubby read my post and said it's an attachment for a trolling motor, not an outboard motor. Whatever.)

So we now own a boat, and I agree that we'll undoubtedly have a lot of fun with it, especially once kidlet gets big enough to enjoy it, too. Someday we'll probably even get a second paddle for me to use. (I have paddled in a canoe before, it's just been a while.) I told hubby that its first use is going to be him taking me out to putter around the lake at the park where he works—as soon as we both have the same day off and have time to do it. Right now that's looking like next Saturday afternoon, after I get home from a baby shower for someone at church who is having her first child (also a boy) five weeks ahead of me. So far it looks like the weather next weekend should be nice so it should be a good time for an afternoon canoe ride on the lake. It sounds lovely.

Lizard Season and Other Stuff

Forget about pregnancy—hubby thinks I should talk about lizards on my blog.

This little guy showed up on our porch recently:

He hasn't been there the past couple days but as the weather gets warmer I imagine he'll be back. Hubby looks for him all the time.

We also have a finch nest in a tree right in front of our porch, the nest is right at eye height so we have a good view of the babies. Hubby says he thinks there are four babies in the nest; when we got home from church this morning we looked at them and I saw at least three fuzzy heads, and two pairs of eyes and little beaks looking at us. They're really cute. (Sorry, no picture yet, maybe later.)

In other news, I'm still getting over the cold I talked about in my last post. It's been two weeks now and I've developed quite a cough, which I think is actually getting worse. I can barely breathe without coughing now and I'm barely sleeping at night. (I have to sleep on three pillows now to help with acid reflux, too, and sleeping on three pillows just isn't comfortable, I've found. I don't sleep deeply and I wake up a lot.) My cough is so bad I called the doctor (ob office) when we got home from church this morning and the midwife on-call called me back. She said it sounds like I might have a respiratory infection and could need an antibiotic. She suggested I call the office for an appointment first thing tomorrow morning. At the very least if my lungs are clear and I don't need an antibiotic they might be able to give me something for my cough, which I assure you isn't pleasant.

Last but not least, if you live in the south you probably experienced it and if you don't you probably heard about the storms that came through here over the past few days. I was at an all-day training session and hubby was at work when the storms came through our area; thankfully, the brunt of the storm seemed to go around our particular area, but not by much. I haven't seen it, but it's strange to read about the devastation that happened when tornadoes touched down only 20 miles or so from us. I was concerned since doggie was home alone during the storms, but hubby left her in the house when he went to work and she usually isn't too bothered by weather so we thought she'd be okay. And she was: She was very happy to see me when I got home but that was probably more because she'd been alone for several hours rather than her being bothered by the storm. Doggie isn't a fan of being by herself for more than a couple of hours, she prefers company.