grrrrrr.....

So I am officially "in hate" (as opposed to "in love") with my health insurance company, as are many Americans these days, I fear. My lovely health insurance has decided that it does not want to cover any expenses related to diagnosing, monitoring or treating any congenital defects in the policy holder (me), whether those procedures were conducted as a result of medical necessity or otherwise. Some of you might remember that I recently underwent a consultation and echocardiogram at the cardiology office associated with my OB/GYN clinic because my OB wanted to make sure that my heart (which had an atrial septal defect at birth that was subsequently corrected with surgery) was strong enough for labor. Seems pretty darn medically necessary to me. But, apparently, under no circumstances will my health insurance cover any expenses related to this congenital defect o' mine. Awesome. That means that we have a nice bill of over $1000 sitting here on our kitchen counter. It's funny though; I'm getting so worked up and frustrated about this, and Jordan just turned to me and said, "Well, that's a small price to pay to make sure that you and the baby will be safe." I suppose he's right. Way to see the silver lining, Jordan; but I'm still angry.

However, this realization prompted me to read the exclusions and limitations portion of my policy with a fine-toothed comb this morning. Apparently I will also not be covered if I am injured while involved in a riot, skydiving, or war. Good to know. Thankfully, they will cover any care necessary for diagnosing, monitoring and treating congenital defects in the baby once he/she is born. Strange.

Today we had our 18 week check-up (since we'll be 18 weeks tomorrow!) and everything was fine. I've gained weight (5 lbs total so far in the pregnancy) and will surely outweigh Jordan in a short while. The baby's heart rate was 140, which, for all you old-wives-tale-believers, suggests that Baby Zucchini might be a boy. So far all the old wives tales seem to indicate that we're having a boy. Jordan is determined for us to have a girl now, just to prove all that nonsense wrong, but in all seriousness neither of us have any preference as far as which gender this baby turns out to have, and we've definitely decided not to find out the sex of the baby ahead of time. Thanks for your votes (on the poll to the right), but we've decided not to pass up this opportunity to be genuinely surprised. When we both picture the delivery of our baby, we both envision the doctor calling, "It's a Boy!" or "It's a Girl!", so it looks like you'll just have to stay tuned for the next 5 months. ;)

Today we had blood drawn to test for neural tube defects and Down Syndrome. Together with the level 2 ultrasound we're having on June 22nd, we should be able to (hopefully) rule out some of the more serious conditions in our baby soon. I swear, studying for the boards (specifically the genetics stuff) has made me wonder about every tiny thing that could go wrong during development. I made the horrible mistake of looking at a picture of an infant with anencephaly (born without a brain) in my pathology review book yesterday. I definitely cried into my textbook. I'm sure everything's fine, but it is a wonder that everything falls into place, most of the time. I keep staring at pictures of my sister's brand new baby boy and thinking just how miraculous it all is. Gush.

Today was also the first time our amazing plan to schedule our appointments according to our OB's on-call schedule backfired. Lately, we've come in at 9am, been seen right away, and been out of there by 9:30. Well, today, we got there at 9 and got right back into the exam room, but then sat there until 9:45 at which point the medical assistant told us that our doctor was stuck in Labor and Delivery and would be there for a while. So, we got to see the nurse practitioner instead, who we like too. Between the delay, the appointment itself, and then going to the lab for the blood draw, we were there for almost 2 hours. Oops.

Well, time for more studying. The boards are coming up in 9 days. AAAAHH!