Friday, August 29, 2008

At home - and exhausted

Brother married.
At home.
Missing my family, but
Glad to be back with my main Squeeze.
Re-entry with the off-kilter 3 year old is taxing my [depleted] reserves.
Disillusionment has kicked into high gear: pesticide laden crop-dusting planes vs. us ---
This world is going to hell in a handbasket.
Buy local and/or organic: forsake your pesticide-drenched food-like substances.
This sh*t is real.

More later.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Put this one in the brain-files

If ands and buts
were candy and nuts,
we'd all have a Merry Christmas.

My brother's skipper often brings this important point up while on the fishing vessel each summer. I thought I should pass the pearl on.

Two more days and he'll be a married man: weird (and beautiful)

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Forest of Feelings and Blog-a-lot

Remember Care-a-lot, where the Care Bears lived? Remember how I said songs get stuck in my head for days and weeks at a time?

Here's my latest:

Forest of Feelings, Care-a-lot, and Earth
Aren't far apart
They differ is some ways in some ways not

Cause home is in your heart
Home is in your heart
Home is in your heart...

We've been watching my brother's Care Bears VHS tapes, saved by my mom. (He didn't even remember they were his.) And dang, has it brought back memories. Does anyone else remember the song above?

Things are good; I'm at my parents'. My brother's wedding is this coming weekend. My legs have been waxed (where I spent much time looking like a bullfrog and gulping for air, peppered with squeaks and full-body shudders). Thanks Muver!

And now, this post will be cut short while I stop my curious 3 year old from ransacking my sister's room. Wahhhhh!!!!

Sunday, August 10, 2008

News involving weddings and waxings

  • I will be a groomswoman in my brother's wedding this month.
  • That means I will be the fanciest and nicest-smelling I've been in, literally, years.
  • It also means that I will be waxing the leg and pit hairs that I've so lovingly grown for, well, years (yet again). I haven't shaved my pits since Diego was a baby. I gave up shaving the old legs during my first pregnancy; but before that it was only once a week during in the summer. [It gives me a pseudo-tan. LOL]
  • My mom is going to do the deed: the waxing.
  • She's enthusiastically looking forward to it - mostly, it seems, because the hair is so long that it is perfect for a home-brew of wax-o-rama. She's been dropping hints for awhile now.
  • Maybe she'll wax my eyebrows too.
  • I tried once, but burnt the crap out of my skin with my too-hot home-brew.
  • Muver?
  • Speaking of weddings, I will be married 8 years on Tuesday.
  • 4 years this autumn with children [including pregnancy] -
  • 4 years without.
  • Almost 4 years together pre-nuptial.
  • 4 + 4 + 4 = 12

Friday, August 08, 2008

Snarf City

  • Red Swan beans, steamed
  • Butter
  • Grated Parmesan

Whoa, baby. Delicious.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Tea, anyone?



I found this 1982 vintage Fisher-Price tea set at the thrift store last week. Diego was absolutely thrilled and plays with it several times throughout each day. He even insists that I fill his "tea" [aka water] from the kettle, not sink. While I am a little wary of him drinking water out of these surely BPA-laden plastic cups, it was just too cute to pass up. [I am making sure to change the water out regularly - and nothing warm or hot.]

Isn't the yellow just too-too? So cute.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Homebirth Insurance Coverage

I keep on forgetting to post on the victorious end-result of getting our homebirth covered by insurance. Yes, it's true!!! Our prenatal care, provided by our Certified Professional Midwife (CPM), plus the labor and delivery at home was covered by our insurance. I couldn't be more pleased.

Our CPM charged us $1,500 - plus gas at each prenatal appointment and any vitamins and/or supplements I purchased through her. Our grand total came to somewhere between $1,600-1,700. [NOTE: $1,500 is exactly half of what the CPM in Minneapolis I met with charged. I believe this is because our SD midwife works in an area where the cost of living is much lower, though she may also charge less than she should - I'm not sure.]

I called our insurance provider, Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS), sometime at the end of October or beginning of November to inquire whether they covered a homebirth with a midwife. They said they covered homebirths with a Certified Nurse-Midwife (CNM) but didn't see anything about CPMs. The difference between the two being: CNMs are Registered Nurses in addition to a Midwifery degree, certified by the ACNM, while CPMs gain their accreditation via a lengthy apprenticeship culminating in an 8 hour exam and skills assessment test, certified by NARM. So there is a difference (especially in the eyes of an insurance provider). CNMs most often work in correlation with OBs in hospitals, though not always. CPMs are generally the midwives who do homebirths, working with friendly OBs as back-ups.

The woman at BCBS told me to submit a claim, basically saying, "What's the diff?!" between CNMs and CPMs. While I have already established that there is a difference, I didn't get too technical with her. I complied and submitted the claim, hoping for the best. This was sometime in November 2007 - I sent in all the paperwork and attached an official Bill of Service from my CPM. Pumpkin was born October 2007.

We didn't hear anything for months and months. I finally called in to check the status on my claim sometime in February or March, but got the run-around. Every dept. I was transferred to claimed that they weren't the ones processing it, and after several hours on the phone I gave up. This was quite distressing, and I called my midwife the next day to explain the circumstances and ask advice. Unbelievably, she had gotten something in the mail from the insurance company requesting more information. A few weeks later, I got a request for more information as well - so at least we knew someone, somewhere in the behemoth that is BCBS, was processing it. This time I made copies of everything they sent me (as well as what I sent back). I wanted PROOF that I was in process, in case I had to call in again.

More waiting, more waiting.

Then, out of the clear blue sky, in MAY 2008, they sent us an Explanation of Benefit Payments and a check for $720. Unbelievable! One month later in June 2008, they sent us another Explanation of Benefit Payments and a check for $161.60. We'll take it! That is $881.60 - covered by our insurance company - for the prenatal and postnatal care, plus the labor and delivery provided by our CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL MIDWIFE, in the comfort of our own home. Our total cost was somewhere in the vicinity of $600-700. Diego's hospital birth on the midwife unit - for just the birth, mind you - was a co-pay of $800-something. Victory!

Spread the word, ladies. It can be done. It might have taken forever and a day, but it can be done. We did it - hooray!!