Hi! Thanks for your lovely messages. It's been an interesting day since I was last able to come on here.
After posting yesterday I had a big leak and promptly lost whatever fluid was in there, I'm sure. And the thing is I've started to feel guilty whenever it leaks out. So every little dribble is an "oh no!". I know there's nothing I can do and I know that the baby is doing ok on very little, but I'm feeling closer and closer to 'mini-Southsea' (
) and really like I am responsible for ensuring s/he stays put for as long as possible. So that was one thing.
Then DP called me in the evening from his bro's to say the insurance people had been in contact. I could tell something was wrong by the tone of his voice. Our insurance company have decided that they are not responsible for meeting the post-birth costs and that we have to apply for Medicaid for the baby instead, as the baby will be a US citizen and not British. Thanks a lot DIRECT TRAVEL INSURANCE! We were both having kittens. I went to bed looking up everything I could on it on the Kindle (cos you can surf the net on it although it is very very slow!) and after a bit started to feel less worried and more resigned to the fact we could be paying off a lot of money over a long time, but we would mange. I also realised there's a big hoo-ha over here about foreigners coming to the US to have babies - they call them 'anchor babies' - so that they can claim residency. And it looked to me that because of the 14th Amendment, which sets out the rights to US citizenship for all children born on US soil, babies automatically qualify for support from Medicaid, which is the states provision for emergency care for the under or un-insured.
Now, we don't want to be claiming Medicaid. Our view is that the insurance company should pay for the baby's care since they knew I was pregnant before we came and said nothing about this, even when I emailed them for clarification. But today a lovely lady from the finance department came to see us to fill out some forms and she seemed confident that the baby would qualify and the hospital costs would be covered. So we're feeling less panicky. But blimey, what a stressful 24 hours! And it is an application, not a definate so it's not ovr yet but we're not going to worry too much just yet.
Another thing that has happened is I had an email from mumsnet passing on an email from a journalist (hello if you are reading )) who wants to have a chat about this post! So that's quite exciting. She's based in London so it would be for British publications and my initial thoughts are that if a story is printed about our situation it might at the very least prompt people to take out decent insurance and seriously think about flying abroad while pregnant, so I will be contacting her to find out exactly what's involved before doing anything about it. What do you think?
iPad has been shipped and due to arrive on the 13th! But there are also big snow storms here due to arrive in Philly tonight! Hope it gets through!
Fannybaws - how lovely you are home. It made me feel good to imagine how that must be for you.
It's time to Skype parents and tell them the news too. Take care x