A way to pay?

It's been awhile since my last post and a lot has happened. I have narrowed down my prospective donors (I'll tell you about that tomorrow) and I have had a glitch in health insurance coverage. That's what I'm talking about today.

Yesterday, I got a letter from Geisinger Health insurance denying me coverage because of my Fibromyalgia and my upcoming IVF and Artificial Insemination. Now, I don't receive treatment for my Fibromyalgia. I just live with it. I go to the doctor for it every few years and maybe get some mac-daddy Ibuprofen or some physical therapy - nothing major. As for the IVF & AI, I'm not doing IVF and as for the AI, they don't cover it anyway so what do they care how I get pregnant? Personally, I think this makes me less of a risky insur-ee than if I had told them that I was going to get pregnant by hitting the local bars. AGAIN - BEING RESPONSIBLE. So now I can't have coverage.

I've called a couple of other insurance folks - and we'll see if anyone else will cover me. I'm trying not to panic. I wonder about folks who just get pregnant without health insurance. How do they pay for it all? How do they not wake up in a cold sweat over how vulnerable they are? Does the government take care of it? Apparently, I make too much money to qualify for Medicaid. But I don't make enough to just be able to pay for all of this out of pocket. I mean, a delivery can cost $7,000 to $10,000! Yikes!

So, in the event I can't get other insurance, I've started brainstorming about other ways to do this. I'd appreciate any thoughts you have. Here's what I've come up with so far.....

1. Put an ad on Craigslist looking for a man with health insurance who needs a green card. I'd marry him. He could live in my guest room. He'd put me on his health insurance. He'd get his green card. I wouldn't go so far as to ask for sperm as part of the deal -- unless his name was Sven and he looked - well - like a Sven. (Close your eyes. You see what I mean, right?)

2. When I go into labor, I have a friend drive me to Canada. I can't be more than a few hours away. Since this is my first kid, I'll be in labor for quite awhile, right? They have nationalized health care, right? Those friendly Canadians wouldn't turn me away, eh?

3. Get pregnant here and then move to England for nine months. I'm not sure how I'd pay for this. Maybe I could get a student visa or something. I'll have to check into fellowship programs or something like that.

4. Get pregnant and then quit my job so I qualify for government assistance. OK - I didn't say these were all GOOD ideas.

5. Apply for a job that has come open in Mom and Dad's old office at USDA. The gov. offers pretty good health insurance and I'd get maternity leave. The bad news is that I'd have to work a 40 hour week on a set schedule and drive 40 minutes each way. (The exact opposite of my life now.)

So, those are my ideas for now. If you have any others to offer, please feel free. I'm open to just about anything here!

I'm not a light-bulb joke.

I subscribe to a chat room of single women trying to get pregnant. We all belong to a group called Single Mothers By Choice. Someone in that group was asking how everyone else chose their RE (the woman who's going to knock me up). I didn't post my reasons for choosing mine because in the grand scheme of things, its probably a stupid reason. But since most of you know how nuts I can be, I thought I'd share my thoughts with you.

So, my Gyno (whom I love) gave me the names of a couple of REs. One was a man approximately 35 minutes away from me. He had his own little practice and used a PA sperm bank. Another was a woman about 1 hour away (maybe a little more). She has a practice with the Geisinger medical group. The third option was highly recommended but she was a couple of hours away - too far.

Now, a normal person might decide to go with the closest one. After all, I may have to go several times during certain weeks of the month. It would make sense. But here's all I could think about: How many men does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two Men?! I've already got one man I don't know from Adam (or at least his swimmers) trying to get me pregnant. I don't need another. I can just hear myself, "Well, I really have two men to thank for giving me my child." I mean, there is just something weird to me about one man injecting another man's swimmers up me to get me pregnant. Gross, right? Excuse me while I have a case of the heebie-jeebies.

I'm sure he's completely professional but my ability to approach this in a totally clinical way only goes so far. I'd rather drive a little further to a nice woman who actually knows what it's like to have people poking around. And there is absolutely no chance that my kid will bear and eerie resemblance to her. You've heard the horror stories from the early days of sperm banks, right? Now, I will pause to give you time for a case of the heebie-jeebies. Just shake 'em off. Better?

And the point of health insurance is.......Anyone?....Anyone?

Allow me a moment to rant, if you will.

I am self-employed. I am also responsible. So, like any responsible, self-employed person, I buy my own health insurance. And I pay out the butt for it. Do you think it is going to help at all in this process? NO. Now, I'm not asking my insurance company to buy my sperm for me. I'm not even asking them to pay my doctor to put it in me. What I'd like them to do is pay for an x-ray to tell me if there is any point in putting sperm in me at the rate of $500+ a pop. I mean, if I were using the "closing time down at the corner bar method" for getting pregnant, then it wouldn't be so important to know if I had any blockages because it wouldn't cost me more than a couple of drinks (and I bet I could find a way around that, too).

But no, here again, I'm being responsible. I'm going through proper channels. And I've just got to wonder what I've been doing, paying $250+ per month for the past 2 years to my health insurance company (and barely using my health insurance) so that they can now tell me that they'll only pay for part of the x-ray, after I've met my deductible (which is almost as much as the x-ray) IF it is within 21 days of a hospitalization or surgery. But I don't need to be hospitalized and I don't need surgery. Now, if the x-ray showed a blockage, then I would need surgery to unblock me - BUT - my insurance wouldn't pay for that surgery because it doesn't cover fertility treatments or procedures.

So, WTF(arfignugen)! Octomom can have 14 kids (with fertility treatments) and get covered under programs funded with my tax dollars (which I'm also paying out the butt for because I'm self-employed) because she certainly doesn't have time for a job and therefore has no health insurance of her own. But my health insurance, which I PAY for, won't cover a test that my doctor tells me I need.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not surprised by this. I watch the news. And I am a Democrat. I know the insurance companies are just out to rob us blind and provide no health benefits so their fat-cat CEOs can hide their profits in the mattresses of their multimillion dollar vacation homes in the Cayman Islands. And now I've managed to connect my fallopian tubes to the social ills of the day. And I'll take this opportunity to tell everyone reading - Devon Health insurance SUCKS!!! My work here is done.

Whispering sweet nothings? I don't think so.

Is there a point at which you could have too much information from your donor? I want to know what he looks like, what his interests are, what his natural abilities are. I want his personality profile. I want to know his family medical history for the last 4 generations. I'd like to have baby pictures and adult pictures. I'd even like pictures of the other children created through his donations.

But, do I want to hear his voice? Some of these sperm banks actually offer audio clips from the donor. I made the mistake of listening to one. It totally freaked me out. I'm not sure if it made him too real for me or what.

Now, I'm not an idiot. I know he's a real person. He has to be. This isn't "Weird Science" and I'm not trying to make a baby out of a Barbie doll. (I apologize for the '80s movie reference.) But for the love of Pete, I'd rather think of him as words and pictures on a page - a nice 2 dimensional set of statistics who just happens to have something I need in order to make a 3 dimensional person. He'll be real to me soon enough. Like when I'm trying to figure out who my offspring looks like or why my kid makes that scrunchy face when he's concentrating on something.

For now, it seems too much like a dating service. And if I've learned anything from dating services, it is that the guys are rarely as good as their profiles. They may look great on paper, but when you start talking to them ........ eh......... not so much.