@aquamala, I didn't have any morning sickness at all, even nausea with DD. With DS1, I was sick from 4w until I delivered at 40w4d, with it easing back at 16w. With my loss, I was sick from 5w until 8w (which is when stuff just fizzled out). With DS2, from 6w until 13w, it was horrible between 8w and 10w. This one... Nothing until 13w. Pregnancy is weird...even for the same person.
Ugh I purposely scheduled my NIPT blood draw for as soon as I could have it done so I would have results as early in my pregnancy as possible. They did the blood draw on Monday and the company processing it still hasn’t received it. I called the office and they say they have FedEx pickup twice a week, Tues and Fri, and it’s overnighted, so that means they didn’t bother to send it out on Tuesday and I essentially lost a whole week because the lab won’t get it until Saturday now. 🤬
This pregnancy is going so slow for me. I feel like I have been pregnant forever and I’m just 13+3. Keep thinking I should feel baby move any day now but really I’ve got at least 4 more weeks. Hoping once October is over it will feel a bit faster. The holidays always fly by.
Now that I have second trimester energy I literally forget I’m pregnant.. and not in a cute way (I sit around eating bbq chips all day). Glad I have an appt coming up on Friday (first one in 2.5 months) and am getting a bump, so hopefully I stop being detached from this pregnancy!
Ok guys...letting out my MIL frustration. So, we started telling family this weekend. We did my MIL in person because she lives close, but we were mailing surprise reveal packages to the rest of our immediate families. We told her, and it was adorable and sweet and great, but we told her she couldn't tell my BIL and she was like "No, no I won't say anything to anyone." Well...it wasn't 12 hours later and we get a phone call from my BIL/SIL and they're like Addisyn (our 5yo niece) has a question for you and she gets on and says "When do I get to meet my baby cousin?" Cue confusion and then annoyance. I guess she was just so happy that she couldn't contain herself, which is kind of cute I guess, but still. It ended up being fine and it was nice to talk to them on the phone about it, and they were both so excited. And the packages will still be fun, and they'll appreciate them. Am I making too much of a thing about it being annoyed?
@BuckeyeNut05 OMG that is SO frustrating!! Although...I had my sample drawn last Monday, and kept waiting, waiting and waiting for them to "receive" it. I FINALLY got a text alert on Saturday morning that it was processing and gave me my out-of-pocket vs just pay up front payment options. So maybe they have it and are already running it? They just skipped right over the "received" part *eyeroll*
@BuckeyeNut05 That is so annoying! I don't understand how they can be so inefficient with blood tests sometimes. I did my glucose screen 6 days ago and my office says they still don't have my results back. That is not a difficult test people.
I have a work/school vent about data and technology. I am in the process of starting my dissertation and I need to use a certain combination of software packages to access restricted data. It's a pain to get it all set up and it is constantly breaking/not working for unknown reasons, then I have to report the problem and wait for the tech people to tell me how to fix it or to fix something on their end. I can do very little without accessing this data, so I'm losing whole days of work while I wait for them to troubleshoot. I'm also annoyed with the quality of data I'm working with and in one case my ability to access it. I've been trying for weeks to get my hands on data that should be publicly accessible but no one seems to have it. And the data I do have is state administrative data, and it is such a beast to work with! New variables appear and disappear constantly/are renamed and it's divided up into 100+ folders, and sometimes variables move from one file to another file. I just feel defeated thinking about it.
@bbrahmbhatt, the only person who should be revealing anything out your pregnancy is YOU (and your partner). My mother or sister told my nieces and nephew I'm having another baby, AND revealed it's a girl. It ticked me off because I haven't told my 8yo yet. I have a previous loss, and wanted to wait until I was closer to 20w (the end of the risk period for 40+). I just don't think it's appropriate they know before her brother does!
@bbrahmbhatt while I can understand the excitement that would infuriate me! That is your news to tell, not hers. I’m so sorry she ruined your surprise. That’s not fair at all.
@kadeephd I feel for you with the inability to access data and then dealing with all of the problems with the systems. My team deals with that on the daily, and I always have to elevate the issues before a fire gets lit under someone’s butt to fix them while my team and others sit, and work piles up. I hope it gets resolved and you get what you need soon!
So I’ve mentioned before that we might move from TX to CA in January. My 5 yo is on a delayed vax schedule due to adverse reactions, so we do one at a time spaced out so if he has any more reactions we know what caused it. California would force him to receive 12 vaccinations within a 1 month period (AGAINST CDC catch up schedule/recommendations!) just to attend school. No time to catch up, no medical exemptions. The lady all but put on an Ivan Drago voice and said “if he dies, he dies”. They legitimately don’t care. The Hep B vaccine pamphlet literally says DO NOT TAKE THIS IF YOU ARE ALLERGIC TO YEAST. Your child could have a confirmed, diagnosed yeast allergy and they will still require it, unless your kid goes into anaphylactic shock then you can MAYBE get an exemption from the rest of the doses for that one only. Don’t know how that can be legal. I’m so frustrated by this. We are NOT anti, just trying to complete the requirements safely. Not in California! 😡
@Serenamarr We did a delayed schedule for my daughter too. We were able to get caught up by the time she went into daycare (1 year old) by Oregon's schedule. 12 vaccinations seems absolutely crazy. There has to be an exception for this. Seems pretty dumb of the lady to say "if he dies, he dies", especially since they might be liable if your kid gets hurt from taking a dangerous amount of vaccines at a time (God forbid). Have you tried getting a second opinion?
I would be so mad if someone shared my news without permission. Now that we have told my MIL, FIL, and SIL I am nervous they are going to tell a ton of people. I WILL LOSE IT! I haven't even told my own sister yet.
I got my blood drawn for genetic testing on 10/7. I still have not gotten results! I am so stressed out, they apparently did not get my blood at the lab until 10/14. I am hoping by this Wednesday (10/21) they can tell me everything is okay. I am a nervous wreck, I do not even want to tell my job I am pregnant until I get those results. There might not be anything to tell if something is wrong!
@Serenamarr I would talk to another person. There aren’t that many required (I think 5), most are 2nd/3rd+ doses which wouldn’t be done simultaneously. You should also be able to get a doctors note if there’s an allergy. I wouldn’t specifically put a ton of faith in the front desk if that’s who you talked to. A few months ago our school nurse called and told me something was due for my son. He was 3.5 at the time, not near a birthday (he goes to the school preschool) and I told her we should be all caught up. Sure enough when I emailed his doctor he’s caught up and nothing is due for a while.
@Serenamarr good luck with that frustrating lady! I hope that everything can get resolved safely for your little dude, 12 shots at once seems incredibly unsafe especially with a history of a bad reaction.
@kadeephd oh man, that also sounds like a daily frustration. I hope technology starts working the way you need it to quickly!
@bbrahmbhatt that’s a completely valid reason to be upset. I’m glad you were able to put a positive spin on it, but it was me, I’d probably hold off on telling her any other upcoming news until others have received the news too (like gender, or if you pick a name etc) that way she doesn’t continue to spoil the excitement.
@bbrahmbhatt so annoying, my MIL did a similar thing (told my SIL bc she assumed we told her when we specifically said don't tell anyone). Very irritating to get a phone call when we weren't ready to share with everyone!
@aguamala@theletlers@forevertired I thought at first it must not be true but y’all that is California. The law they passed last year effectively makes it impossible for doctors to write medical exemptions. Any doc who writes more than 5 a year will be reviewed by the state and can no longer write exemptions while under review. I spoke to a mom who was told she’d have to give all 35 doses required for her kid in 2 months. It’s not just one lady or one school: it is the entire state and I’ve talked to so many people who are literally fleeing the state. Spoke to another lady whose kids’ medical exemptions were invalidated mid year when this law passed and the kids were forced to get 5 shots in one visit to return to school mid year. If you refuse Hep B vax in the hospital because you want to wait, CPS is notified. I had no idea how bad it truly was to the point they ignore CDC recs and vaccine contraindications. I was excited for this move but now I’m honestly terrified.
Also to be clear the lady didn’t actually say if he dies he dies lol it’s a quote from Rocky IV, I just meant that was her attitude. She was from the county health department.
Edit to add another crazy thing, they only go by the Immunization tracking database so if your child’s records were not entered in that database or cannot be verified electronically (like a small pediatrician office, or if the doses were given years ago before the systems were fully in place) despite having records faxed from that office, they will make you repeat the ones you’ve already done. Like ?!?!?!?
@Serenamarr, I don’t want to dismiss your frustrations here but at least part of this is untrue. I denied the Hep B vax in the hospital and most certainly did not have CPS called. A friend of mines son has immune issues and cannot be vaccinated and they have not had a problem getting doctors exemptions. I believe for kindergarten you need ONE dose of the following vaccines: polio; diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis; measles; hepatitis B and varicella (or medical exemption for those) before enrolling but you can get the booster shots later. Have you spoken to your pediatrician about this? I can ask my friend if she can refer a doctor that could help with the medical exemption if you’d like. It would definitely freak me out if I had to give my child a massive amount of vaccines at once too but I do think you have options. (Not trying to be argumentative here - just want to help ease your worries). 💜
Oh one other thing - if you don’t have vaccine records your pediatrician can check your child’s titer and confirm so you don’t need to repeat a dose. I had to do this myself because I work in a hospital and had to prove I was immunized but couldn’t find any of my immunization records.
@bbrahmbhatt ughhh I would be very frustrated!! My mom and my MIL were both dying to tell. MIL told some of her friends because DH started getting texts from family friends saying congrats. I guess she thought we only meant don't tell people we'd want to tell, rather than don't share with anyone because we're not ready to tell people yet (that was weeks ago). Frustrating that you went through the effort of making the packages for your family and then MIL spilled the beans
@jenn622-2 the hospital I was looking into actually stated on their website that refusing it can be considered child endangerment and that cps would be notified. Maybe it’s up to the discretion of the hospital on that one but how terrifying that they even could do that at all. Here is the states kinder requirements directly from the source. 15 in total, of which my son has 3. I’m not being an alarmist. I’ve extensively researched.
If the mother has a Hepatitis infection and refuses to vaccinate her child it is considered child endangerment. I believe this is the only time because the child is at high risk for infection. In addition to the basic entry requirements you shared they grant conditional approvals for children that are behind in vaccinations and need to play catch up. I’m not accusing you of being an alarmist just sharing my experience.
@jenn622-2 I thought there would be leeway also for catching up—because that would make sense!—but I was told no by the Orange County health department as well as the school. It would all need to be done within one month. The following is from the public health government website for LA County. It doesn’t matter if the mother is positive or not. Also to add, I’m not as scared of this actually happening as I am bothered by the fact that it COULD legally happen.
@Serenamarr TLDR: I live in California and haven’t had any issues with my son’s medical exemption from live vaccines.
Full story: The laws have become more strict in recent years because of a large anti vaxx population in our area, but I’ve had zero issues personally.
I am on an immunosuppressant that passes through the placenta, so my babies are immunocompromised for six months after birth. They can’t receive any live vaccines during this period for obvious reasons. We are all caught up for my 2 y/o now except we’ve aged out of rotavirus so we will never get it.
We’ve had two pediatricians and both have agreed with the vaccinating plan and we have an accommodation to attend daycare. I’ve never received pushback or felt unsupported. With my son’s severe food allergies (FPIES), we were evaluated by our allergist at the children’s hospital before receiving additional vaccines with concerning non active components (egg, casein, soy, chicken for us at various points of infancy). She recommended proceeding on schedule so we did, and he tolerated them well.
All to say, each kid is still evaluated by care providers on a case by case basis. If an individual provider is found to write an unusual number of accommodations, s/he is investigated. But you should still absolutely have access to medically indicated accommodations. Our pedi would never want to put my kids at risk, even if it causes more paperwork for them.
@rexnie I’m glad you were able to get your accommodations! Ive heard some really frightening stories from people who’ve unfortunately had the opposite experience. In the mom group for my city there were at least 15 moms who left California to move to Texas solely because of loss of medical freedom. I don’t think my sons reactions were bad enough to warrant a medical exemption in California from what I have heard, even though we had one in PA and TX— we do still plan on giving the remaining doses, but it is just concerning that there is no compromise for giving them slowly and safely. He did still have a full body rash and fever for 2 days. I just can’t believe that counts for nothing.
@Serenamarr that is so crazy to me (I work at a school in CA) and SO frustrating! If I remember correctly in my district they are still requiring all vaccines even if distance learning this year, which is crazy (especially for your situation). That’s so hard, I’m really sorry!
@Serenamarr honestly I’ve seen complaints on my local mom’s group page, but it seems like the majority came from people who had previously been granted religious or philosophical exemptions and don’t want the state interfering with the doctor-patient relationship. I did hear of one concerning story about a loss of medical exemption but it was told by someone online like 3 people removed from the child, so I am not sure how much credence to lend. I do take comfort that the AAP of California and other major medical groups support the new law.
Have you read about temporary medical exemptions for conditional admittance into kdg? It might allow you to get some of the non negotiables to begin on time then safely space the rest of the doses out so you’re in compliance and not booted from school. It depends on what all you need though.
I don’t think you’ll be able to get a medical exemption for two day rash and fever here, but you might have a chance of a temporary exemption to get caught up - especially since I’m guessing you’ll need multiple doses of some of the vaccines and medically boosters have to be spaced out.
@eahayes@rexnie it just makes me so uncomfortable to think that I’m being told to give my son something I know will most likely harm him multiple times in a short time period and there is no allowance because it hasn’t yet been life threatening. And more than that there is no accountability should something more serious happen, he’d just be a number brushed under the rug as a victim of an overzealous system that makes no allowance for children’s individual needs.
And ok I know this is the rant thread but I didn’t mean to totally take it over so I’m gonna make this my last post on it! Thank all of you ladies for lending your ear. I am glad I am financially able to stay home and home school him, which seems like the only way to keep him safe at this point.
@Serenamarr that is so scary, I would be terrified too! It's nuts to me, because I just brought my dog to the vet and she recommended spacing out my dog's booster shots. She was overdue for shots and needs to get caught up, but even this animal doctor doesn't want to give an animal all of the shots at once! I would probably reconsider moving to CA at all. No offense to you guys from CA, of course!
Ok, time to vent! All you STM+ are probably going to be like DUH, but here we go anyway.
Obviously I've heard from friends and family about how expensive birthing a baby is, but it's usually been in terms of the hospital stay and the actual labor/delivery. DH and I have pretty good insurance and I feel like in our general healthcare, we've never had any crazy bills. However, I just got our first round of bills from our prenatal care and holy crap!! I was shocked that basically NOTHING is 100% covered by insurance!
When we first found out I was pregnant, I called the insurance company to find out what was covered and what wasn't covered as far as prenatal care goes and they told me it falls under preventative care and basically everything is covered. Well, these bills I received today state otherwise! When I called the insurance company, they basically told me that only office visits fall under preventative care and all of my labs, ultrasounds, etc. do not and I am responsible for 20% of all of those bills, regardless of if we meet our deductible. Our deductible for the year is only $500 so I thought I'd be limited to that, but nope. I am only limited by the out of pocket maximum which is $7k, so I will be responsible for paying $7k in bills this year AND $7k in bills for 2021. How crazy!! I'm paying like $300 per ultrasound out of pocket.
Not much to be done about it, but just needed to vent about that! We will be changing insurance in the new year and sheesh, hopefully we can find something a little better!
Ugh @theblondebump I’m sorry. What was new for me between my first (and second) and third was that they estimate the cost of your care at the OB and put you on a payment plan and force you to pay up-front for all of the care they expect you to receive. That was a rude awakening for me last time.
I was also surprised with my first pregnancy that once the baby is out, you get all the hospital charges for not only you, but the baby (or babies if it’s twins) too, and they have to meet their own deductible(s).
If your open enrollment is coming up for next year, I would recommend you and your spouse enrolling in flex spending so that at a minimum, there is a portion of that can be covered pre-tax and taken out of your paycheck. It helped us tremendously, and we continue to use it for so many things even in the years I am not pregnant or having a baby.
Silver lining is that you’ll meet your max out of pocket early in the year?
@theblondebump ugh I’m so sorry!! Insurance stuff is sooo frustrating!! For my first 3 I was on the same (my) insurance so I’d finally gotten it figured out & now this time I’m on the hubs’ insurance and evvvvery appt I’m like “wait what now? What’s not covered?” Pain for sure!
@theblondebump co-insurance is a B****. It’s a completely broken system and I say that as the wife of a career health insurance exec. We paid about 2k for the labs/ultrasounds last pregnancy (we refused all nonessentials and only had 2 US) and ended up around 2500 for the actual birth, and that’s with the highest tier coverage his company offered at the time. If you know you are going to have an expensive event in a plan year it sometimes makes sense to look more at the coinsurance rates than at the deductible. Just keep in mind that with most major medical institutions, they cannot or will not send to collections as long as you pay SOMETHING each month. Could be as little as 50 bucks. It’s not accruing interest so no rush!
We were notified a few weeks ago that a local tree removal/care company may be coming to our yard to work on trees on behalf of the power company. We have power lines that run through our yard/neighborhood and I guess it’s routine care to make sure the trees aren’t in the way of the power lines. They were in our neighbor’s yard that’s behind us - our yard backs up to his - for the past several days. Our dog mumbled and barked and growled at their truck sounds all week. Today they’re in our yard. 😑 He’s just constantly growling like some kind of grumpy old man. And the girls are very interested in it (rightfully so) but they’re so distracted, school is going to be a joy to do today. Yaaaay.
Insurance is the absolute worst. We have the same set-up in that the "global maternity" is covered, but that just covers the visits and nothing else. Luckily those expenses do tend to slow down since a lot of the testing happens in the first tri. This time around I got so pissed off because my OB gave me a packet with all of the possible genetic tests I could get and their billing codes, and told me to call my insurance. Then the insurance told me there was no way they could tell me what would be covered until they were actually billed for it. Seriously? It's such a mess and it's impossible to navigate and keep your cool.
@kadeephd unfortunately I think you got someone who either didn't know what they were talking about or just didnt want to look it up for you. They can definitely tell you what is covered based on the codes. How frustrating!
@kadeephd it’s so frustrating but some insurance companies won’t informally tell you yes or no because it is a liability issue if there ends up being information you didn’t disclose that would affect the coverage of the service in question. BUT you are absolutely entitled to a preauthorization request. It’s a more “formal” request that would be submitted to your insurance on your behalf by your doctor’s office. It can take a bit of time but they have to respond.
Re: Random Vents
@eahayes now I want BBQ chips...
@BuckeyeNut05 OMG that is SO frustrating!! Although...I had my sample drawn last Monday, and kept waiting, waiting and waiting for them to "receive" it. I FINALLY got a text alert on Saturday morning that it was processing and gave me my out-of-pocket vs just pay up front payment options. So maybe they have it and are already running it? They just skipped right over the "received" part *eyeroll*
@BuckeyeNut05 That is so annoying! I don't understand how they can be so inefficient with blood tests sometimes. I did my glucose screen 6 days ago and my office says they still don't have my results back. That is not a difficult test people.
I have a work/school vent about data and technology. I am in the process of starting my dissertation and I need to use a certain combination of software packages to access restricted data. It's a pain to get it all set up and it is constantly breaking/not working for unknown reasons, then I have to report the problem and wait for the tech people to tell me how to fix it or to fix something on their end. I can do very little without accessing this data, so I'm losing whole days of work while I wait for them to troubleshoot. I'm also annoyed with the quality of data I'm working with and in one case my ability to access it. I've been trying for weeks to get my hands on data that should be publicly accessible but no one seems to have it. And the data I do have is state administrative data, and it is such a beast to work with! New variables appear and disappear constantly/are renamed and it's divided up into 100+ folders, and sometimes variables move from one file to another file. I just feel defeated thinking about it.
I got my blood drawn for genetic testing on 10/7. I still have not gotten results! I am so stressed out, they apparently did not get my blood at the lab until 10/14. I am hoping by this Wednesday (10/21) they can tell me everything is okay. I am a nervous wreck, I do not even want to tell my job I am pregnant until I get those results. There might not be anything to tell if something is wrong!
@bbrahmbhatt that’s a completely valid reason to be upset. I’m glad you were able to put a positive spin on it, but it was me, I’d probably hold off on telling her any other upcoming news until others have received the news too (like gender, or if you pick a name etc) that way she doesn’t continue to spoil the excitement.
@BuckeyeNut05