Victory!

I am now registered as an insured Mama at the North Austin Medical Center where Matt and I (mostly I) have been planning on delivering the baby since we started seeing Dr. Neyman earlier this year.

Just in case you haven't been privy to all the gory details, the quick version: the little one and I got approved for a type of state health insurance called CHIP Perinatal, which is a relatively new program here designed for women who do not qualify for Medicaid because of their income or immigration status. It covers mothers in certain income categories (like mine and Matt's) via their unborn children with prenatal care, labor and delivery, and a year of insurance for the child. I was initially very excited to be covered by this program, until I started talking to people at my doctor's office and the hospital and realized that no one would admit to knowing anything about the program and how it works. The hospital was insisting that they would register me as uninsured and have me apply for another form of emergency state aid, literally from my hospital bed. I've spent so much time trying to solve this problem of not having health insurance one way or another - as has Matt, and many of our extended family members - that imagining that scene taking place around our new family just got me completely pissed and highly motivated.

After making a few polite inquiries with various Hospital and HHSC departments, I decided to abandon the usual methods, and I started researching St. David's Healthcare, the company that owns the hospital where I'll deliver. I got the names of the CEO and CFO of the company, as well as names of people at the heads of various departments that seemed relevant, and I used my knowledge of the company's standard email format (firstname.lastname@stdavids.com), to email nine executives on Thursday with a concise, well-written request that the situation be looked into. I said I felt confident that the situation could be resolved once the right staff members had the right information. Four of the emails bounced back, but five made it through to various execs, and within three hours, my "case" had been escalated to the head of the PreAdmissions Department. By Monday morning, I had received an email directly from the CEO, who had copied the staff member he wanted to take care of the situation. Half an hour after receiving that email, I got a call from the PreAdmissions department informing me that the situation had miraculously been resolved. They admitted that I was indeed covered and would be registered as such. The woman I spoke with also said that "I had opened a lot of doors for them" and that there's a much better understanding now of how the program I have works.

Which, honestly, is kind of lame. I'm ecstatic about the fact that they resolved the problem, but it's their job to do that, and no one would take 10 minutes to read the policy and/or call the HMO that manages the health plan until I started to cause a little trouble. It took me less than an hour to get all the information I needed about the program's coverage policies, because it's all on the HHSC's website, plain as day. I hope that the ruckus raising I did at the executive level will prevent less savvy women on this plan from having to be jerked around like I was, but it should never have been my responsibility. When a new public healthcare program is created, relevant hospital staff should be trained on how it works. It's frustrating to know that the majority of women and children qualifying for this program are most likely less educated, less confident, and less proficient in English than myself, and have probably suffered needlessly because of it or potentially even denied benefits they're entitled to.

I'm incredibly relieved that this battle is over, and that I won. I feel like I can spend the next month taking care of the fun stuff now, like what color fuzzi bunz to buy and where to hang mobiles and learning how to install a car seat, and buying as much awesomely unnecessary stuff as I can at the Mommy and Me Consignment Sale in a couple of weeks. Not to mention choosing a middle name for this little squirmer. But I doubt I'll forget how intensely annoying and wrong this process has been for me, and I would not be surprised if it planted the seed for some future career in health care reform. If there is such a thing . . . if not, I may have to use my recent experience helping start up the nonprofit writing center to create that career. I suppose it's largely because I'm pregnant and nothing feels more essential to me right now than the well-being of my family, but our health care system is so broken and so pathetic, and I feel like nothing is more important in this country at this point in time than fixing our crumbling systems - systems that - with our ridiculous amount of resources - should be among the best in the world and should be able to support the health and wellbeing of everyone who lives here with ease. I hope to see big changes in my lifetime, and I do hope to be a part of those changes in one way or another.

This Week, This Week, This Unbelievable Week

Monday
Set up your workstation at the local coffeeshop to get some out of office grantwriting done - discover that your friend went into labor a little early with her husband out of town, and dash off to be with her instead for the rest of the day. Go to childbirth classes and act out a cesarean birth scenario, have unpleasant hospital dreams.

Tuesday
Plod through day. Remember nothing.

Wednesday
Spend 5 hours at the Emergency Room with friend who works in same office complex and almost sacrificed a thumb to a piece of spinning metal. Have a popsicle in the rain. Have heartburn and insomnia and other unmentionable symptoms. Consult with doctor at 2am. Sleep.

Thursday
Drop an Executive Email Carpet Bomb on the hospital folks who would rather not pre-register you as insured, even though you are now insured. Get one promising response within three hours.

The Changing Table

So, Matt made this amazing table last semester at school. It's hard to appreciate its full glory in these pictures - the sturdy metal legs, the locking wheels, the nice, smooth welds, and the circular and rectangular slots for tools - but you can get a fair idea of what it's like. It's really a drafting table, but for the first six months or so of the baby's life, it's going to masquerade as a changing table. We're going to plop a changing pad on top, a diaper pail underneath, and keep other necessary supplies nearby. If Matt has time before the little lady arrives, he'll build a drawer attachment underneath the table to hold extra stuff. The table will live by a nice, big window in our bedroom/office/nursery, and as you can see, the built-in tilty feature of the table top will allow us to effortlessly slide the baby into her co-sleeper once she's back in a fresh new pair of fuzzi bunz.

In Response to the Many Requests for an Update, This is What the Last Month Has Been Like

Making to-do lists that expand and contract with their own life force. Tidying the front porch. Scrubbing the kitchen. Reorganizing the bookshelves. Sorting through old clothes. Surreptitiously parting with household junk in the dumpster behind the old bread factory that now houses your office. Needing work and rituals that will prepare your mind and body for her arrival. Learning that the tight and tender spot on your belly some afternoons is a contraction. Feeling extremely uncomfortable in childbirth class as your teacher acts out her own interpretation of a contraction and wanting her to stop moaning almost as badly as if you were having the contraction yourself. Swimming laps at the pool to stay strong; doing the same, meditative stroke, stroke, stroke breathe for lap after lap and watching the liquid veins of sunlight move across the pool floor as you go. Walking home in the shade on the same route each time, to see: the fig tree, the blue house with the giant rocking chair, the lost cat poster on the telephone pole, the slow trickle of Waller Creek. Laying down on the table to listen to your baby's heartbeat, always the same steady rhythm, the nurse saying the same number with a smile. Watching the doctor stretch her tape measurer across your belly. Drawing circles on the legal pad next to your computer at work and marking each spot where you feel a flutter, push, or squirm throughout the day. Feeling disconnected from life in a divine sort of way. Not being able to handle small and earthly things like remembering where your glasses are or that you're supposed to go visit the hospital or how to make Mark Bittman's pancake recipe or to take the things you've paid for at the coffee shop. Realizing the reason the dog always unmakes the bed after you leave for work is that it's his way of rebelling against losing his spot there at night, which you've trained him for in case the baby is sleeping with you. Wrapping your husband's birthday presents early and leaving them on the sewing table to gently torture him with anticipation. Remembering you were going to go to Jane Cohen's house in Umbria this summer when you see your copy of Let's Go Western Europe on the high bookshelf your husband built to make more room for the baby. Coming home from a walk to find that your cat has dismantled the knitting project you've been working on for your sister-in-law, and not being able to be mad at her because she is tiny and fuzzy and nearly blind.