let's talk about insurance, baby

Many of you offered such thoughtful and helpful comments after yesterday's post. Lots of the comments centered on the insurance issue. There were questions and great advice. I also received some wonderful emails on the topic.

Thank you. 

I thought a little follow-up post about the insurance issue was in order for today. 

I believe that one of the reasons Chas and I were blessed with such peace on the subject was because we do have a plan. 

I hope I didn't lead you to believe that we're just gonna wing it and hope that everything comes together somehow. That would be silly and irresponsible. 

There have actually been multiple plans drafted ever since we started wanting a little cryings. 

Plan A was praying our hearts out (for a long time) that Chas could get a full-time job that offered benefits. 

Turns out, that hasn't been in the cards for us. At least, not yet. 

We both feel like a job with benefits will eventually happen for our family. We're just not sure when.

Plan B was to go ahead and just start trying for a little cryings, regardless of not having benefits. 

Heather told us how there is great financial assistance offered through a local hospital. 

(I wrote a post about that story here.)

The first part of Plan B (the most important part) eventually worked out great. 

I'm making a little cryings! 

But, as I explained in yesterday's post, we apparently don't qualify for the hospital's financial assistance. 

So here's Plan C: 

In meeting with the financial aid counselor, we got a lot of good information and helpful specifics. 

We're using an awesome nurse midwife at the hospital and the total cost of all the visits with our midwife, the actual delivery, and post-natal care is a chunk of change that we can definitely work with. 

Adding hospital bills and a possible epidural, is still something we can afford.** 

If, heaven forbid, there are complications which shoot our medical bills through the roof, we will be in a much better place to qualify for financial assistance through the hospital after the birth because we'll owe tons of money and have a dependent we can claim. 

In fact, the counselor we spoke with was very certain that we'd be covered if this were the case. 

So that's basically what we're using as our "insurance policy" right now. 

We used to just pay for a policy with a super high deductible but have since cancelled it. The hospital's financial aid program is basically taking the place of that policy except we don't have to pay a monthly premium! 

The hospital also automatically deducts 20% from our bills because we don't carry insurance.

Win win. 

If Chas doesn't have a job with benefits after little cryings is born and we pass the time when the baby is no longer covered under the "post-natal care," we'll look into CHIP or something similar so we can be sure that our child will get the proper medical care it needs. 

** Ever since we got married two years ago, Chas and I have been working very hard and very diligently to make paying off my graduate school loans a top priority. 

If all goes as planned, we're hoping to have it almost alllll paid off by the time little cryings is here. 

Even though putting money towards my loans every month feels like we're just giving money away, an unexpected blessing has come. 

We both have a different, renewed perspective on large quantities of money, our ability to live frugally enough to save, and our ability to put money towards something super important.

It's a mixture of confidence in ourselves and faith that the Lord will provide if we sacrifice and do what's right. 

Blessings come when we do all we can on our own and then have faith in Heavenly Father being aware of our situation and his ability to open doors for us.