Reality Check . . . Do You Take Installments?

I knew that the whole childbirth process was gonna be expensive, but we've just been blindsided by Blue Cross/Blue Shield to the point where it almost seems it would be CHEAPER to NOT have insurance on Nicholas this year and sign him up after his first birthday.

Everybody knows how basic insurance policies work: Most are 90%/10% or 80/20 or something like that. Of course, you have your annual deductible--something like $300 or $500 that must be paid first before the 80/20 stuff starts kicking in. But alas, hidden in the deep, dark, illogical corner of the benefits guide, without any provision for newborns and infants, is apparently something called a maximum wellness benefit.

The first sign that something was up was a bill from the pediatricians office not long after his first round of shots (8 weeks). Something to the tune of 400 bucks or something. Then we got the EOB from the insurance company, and as I analyzed it, I noticed that SOME of the charges from that day were paid, while others were not. I called. "Your maximum wellness benefit is $200." OK, so what about babies, and shots? 200 dollars max. So once the insurance company pays that 200 for any expenses that are flagged as "wellness", well, the rest is 100% up to Mommy and Daddy. How crazy is this? A baby is supposed to go to the doctor at 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, and a year. Most shots occur before the 2nd birthday. While I realize that the average John Doe doesn't show up at his doctor's office and say, "I'm feeling quite nice today--and I wish to see a doctor!!" and thus the $200 limit is never really an issue, surely there must be some sort of provision for babies during their first year. Nope. Sorry, dude...It all comes down the specific company's contract.

So Nicholas's 4-month appointment was 3/21. Would you like to hear the breakdown of this visit? $123 for the doctor to examine. OK, no prob--doc went to school for that. He had four shots--costing $98, $60, $51, and $118. Oh yeah, each injection carries an "admin fee" of $25 for another $100. If you're not adding that up, let me do the math for you: $550, all totally uncovered by insurance. So now we're running up a tab that's over a grand. Nice. Heck, with two more similar trips (6 months, 1 year), we might bust 2 grand!!! Now, here's where the logic really breaks down for me.

We're paying approximately $100/month for Nicholas's coverage on our insurance. So for $1200/year, this coverage is getting us, let's see...........$200 in wellness coverage. Why bother?? So let's assume that we end up paying $2000 to the Pediatrics East and $1200 to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, that means that we'll be out $3200 for insurance coverage that saved us $200. Wow, I guess I can't be ALL that mad--there was that one prescription........

Food, Progress, and Allergies

We've reached the 5-month plateau, which is one month away from being halfway to a year. "Wow" is really all I can say. So I figured it was time for a much needed update, especially given the incessant urging (read: nagging) from the likes of my wife and a co-worker (Hello, Michelle!)

The food and feeding has clearly become Leah's department, which I'm OK with. First of all, I'm at Kroger 3-4 nights a week, and it makes it really hard to feed our son when I'm hawking money orders or sending Western Union payments to Guatemala or strapping 20-dollar bills and dropping them into the safe. So anyway, it's kind of good thing that Leah's kind of taken over, because I'm not sure Nicholas wouldn't be the victim of rigorous record-keeping and tough decision making when it comes to what's being served if I was in charge. "Wait, he had peas 4 days ago--we can't give him that! Let's try beans, but according to my chart, he spit them out the last time he ate them."

We started jar foods at 4 months. Dr. Scott's little process involves yellow or orange veggies for 3 days (to spot allergies). And then green one (I think) for another 3. Then back to a yellow or orange one--this time, a different one. And so on and so on until he's had the entire "Stage 2" menu (stage 1 is basically the same stuff, but the jars are smaller). But we noticed quickly that there was a lot more of one category than the other. Add to that the fact that Nicholas expressed extreme dislike early on for a thing or two, it was like our choices were dwindling, yet we wanted to adhere to Dr. Scott's wishes. That's where my problem came in--I, being of analytical, "we-must-follow-the-directions-explicitly" mindset, got really flustered when it seemed that we were deviating. Not that the "parents police" were gonna report me or anything, but what seemed very logical and straight-forward on paper turned out to be a bit of a challenge in the "real world."

Now Nicholas's appetite seems to be really growing. Currently he eats two 'meals'--breakfast, which is kiddie oatmeal and formula, as well as dinner--which is the aforementioned baby food selections. By now we've included such things as mixed veggies and even fruits, but meats aren't supposed to come until later (6 months, I think). Yesterday, Nicholas had something like a 3 oz bottle within an hour or so of eating, and later in the day had an 8 oz bottle--I don't know if he's ever drunk that much at one time. I don't think you can overfeed them at this age, and I suppose we should feed him until he appears to be satisfied. But sometimes it seems like we're shooting at a moving target.

I'm already finding myself wondering when Nicholas will do stuff, and wondering how he compares to the rest of America. You always hear stuff like "They should start sitting up at X months" or "Reaching begins at X months." I know that every child is different, and I certainly don't want to spend my life comparing him to other kids, but I think part of it is absolutely natural--Wouldn't we want to spot some sort of shortcoming, problem, or deficiency as early as possible? The Exersaucer that we have says that it's for age 4 months and up, yet a month ago, he was not even close to being ready to sit in it. It wasn't until last night, when Leah said that our babysitter puts him in the one that she has--with the assistance of a blanket or towel--that we tried Nicholas in it (he did OK). Also last night, Leah opened the box for his little bath seat, that is both a padded ring for him to sit in as well as an "armrest" for the edge of the tub. The instructions say something like, "Not to be used until infant can sit up unassisted (approximately 5 months of age). Well, Nicholas is 5 months (and 5 days!) and he can't quite keep his balance long enough to do it more than 2 or 3 seconds. Another example is rolling over--he doesn't really do it. Actually, he does it in reverse: if you put him on his stomach, he has no problems returning to his back. Yet he rolls 2/3 of the way over from his back to his tummy (pretty much rotates his hips and tries to let his upper body follow), and kinda gives up since that bottom arm prevents him from getting all the way over. I'm thinking to myself, "What's the deal? Is every other 5 month old in America rolling over regularly?" Oh well, one day I'm gonna wish he was that small.

We also discovered (the hard way) that Nicholas is allergic to something in Johnson & Johnson's bath soap. We had had some issues with him breaking out and having some redness on his chest, but for one, it never really seemed to bother him. And two, at Dr. Scott's suggestion, we changed formula. Initially we had not changed the formula (because he didn't eat as much of it and fussed more than he ever had), but did change his soap, added a moisturizing lotion, and stuff like that. Well, once all of that seemed to do little good with the rash, we decided to tough it out and go to the formula that Dr. Scott had suggested. Actually, Nicholas took to it better this time, and the redness and rash was gone in a matter of a couple of days. I made the suggestion for us to try going back to the Johnson & Johnson's, since it was apparently the formula that was causing the problem (sounds logical, right?!)

Oh boy. Leah and I both could've cried, had we tried hard enough. Leah was bathing him, and I was in the other room. All of a sudden, I hear him go from calm to crying in about 1.3 seconds. I thought maybe he had slipped, or hit his arm or head or something, and was just upset. I said, "What happened?" Leah came out of the bathroom with Nicholas wrapped in a towel, and said, "He's allergic something in the Johnson and Johnson's." No sooner had she washed and rinsed his chest, it instantly turned red and he started making this rubbing/scratching motion his hands and let out the cries that I had heard. We grabbed some ointment and tried to blow on his chest--anything to stop the hurting. Meanwhile, he was crying profusely--not has hard as when he got shots or anything, but very much annoyed and hurting. What a crushing, horrible feeling--knowing that your baby is hurting because of something that we did inadvertently. Obviously it wan't on purpose, and I'm sure there will be other similar occurrences in the future, but how very helpless we felt. I absolutely could've cried--seeing him lay right there on his changing table, hurting. Luckily, we got him calmed down and the redness went away pretty quickly. We kind of hate it, too--Johnson and Johnson's products are our favorites, and Leah always wanted to have an entire aresenal of their lotions, creams, soaps, and shampoo. Oh well.