As of tomorrow, we'll be at 22 weeks! Today we had a prenatal visit and toured one of the local hospital birth centers.
I really liked the birth center we saw today. Their rooms are spacious and labor-delivery-postpartum is all done in the same private room. Babies almost always stay in the room with you and you are welcome to have as many or as few visitors as you like. Partners are totally welcome to stay overnight (though the sleeping accommodations are kinda akin to camping). The basic room comes with a half bath but they also have two rooms with AquaDoula (www.aquadoula.com) labor tubs and two have showers in the bath. This also happens to be the hospital that my midwives prefer (of all the births at this hospital, they attend nearly 50%). I can see why.
I've seen the postpartum rooms at the other local hospital and most if not all of them are (potentially) shared with a roommate. It is also definitely less home-y and more hospital. Since I'm rather anxious in hospitals, more home-y is a plus. We do our official tour of that hospital on October 1st but unless the baby comes at or before 36 weeks (as they have the local neo-natal intensive care unit), it is unlikely we'll have a compelling reason to have her there.
On that note, baby sounds like she's doing just fine and we're pretty much on target for January 10th-ish based on the abdomen measurement today. Her heart rate is good (140's), my blood pressure looks great (110/78), and so far there is no sign of gestational diabetes (though that usually develops after 24 weeks from what I've read). She is pretty active and I can feel her larger movements. They're supposed to get strong enough to feel from the outside over the next 4 weeks.
I've gotten the OK to start prenatal yoga classes at the adult school next Monday, which I'm very much looking forward to. I've also been seeing Mark's chiropractor (she's great) to help with the aches in my back as my center of gravity shifts and my joints loosen up. We pretty much spend the whole appointment talking about babies while she's working on me. :)
We did have some bad news today on the insurance front, as it appears the OB/midwives office split has resulted in me using a non-network provider. That means we're hit with a $1000 out-of-network deductible (separate from the $250 in-network deductible that I've already met) and they pay 80% rather than 90%. Bleah. When I first checked to make sure they were on the list, the office hadn't split yet and they still have the OB listed in the network directory but it is under his old information. The other crappy news is that they've denied the claim filed for my visit to the endocrinologist (she charged $500 for an office visit!) so I'm not sure where that is gonna leave us. It may account for part of that nasty out-of-network deductible though. Oh joy. I just realized that if the baby is born in January, both the damned deductibles will likely roll over so we'll have $1250 out-of-pocket. At least then maybe we can work it into our FSA withholdings.
I definitely have no love for this insurance plan. At least the perinatologist who did the ultrasound is in-network. Oh, and it appears that only the hospital we toured today is on the list. The other one is out-of-network so it is in the $1000 deductible, 80% reimbursment list. Baby girl, you better stay put until full term.
Wow, what a downer to end on. I'll fix it.
I'm really getting excited to meet our baby and now that I've settled into being pregnant, I have moments of utter joy just knowing that she's in there. Kicking the cat. :)
