a vent about the green stuff

So, we still haven't received the bill from the hospital.  On one hand, I am not wanting to give them any money to pay for the birth of my dead babies, but on the other hand it is one more reminder out there dangling in the back of my mind reminding me that the door I keep trying to close wont close.  I want to move forward.  I want to think about our babies in a positive light, remembering the time I was pregnant with them and the moments after their birth and their beautiful faces.  I don't want to have to think about how much it potentially cost me. 

I am not a patient person.  

It has been 5 months. 
Send me the bill.

Lets negotiate a fair price.

I'll pay it off.

Move on with our lives. 

You would think this is how it would work, right?  So, I decided to call the hospital and my insurance company (IC from now on) yesterday.  The hospital said they were waiting on IC get back with them.  The IC said they were waiting on the hospital for a reimbursement for over paying the claim.  (Sounds fishy doesn't it!)

By this time it is already almost 6pm yesterday and the lady at the hospital that I needed to speak to was gone for the day.  I left her a message.  She called back this morning.  She was very sympathetic to our situation and did the extra step in her job and called the IC and said she would then call me back.  She just called me back and she was able to straighten out our claim.  Basically, we owe roughly $8k for our dead babies delivery. This just plain sucks.  I knew it was going to be about that much, but to walk away from the hospital with no baby, it just seems a like A LOT of MONEY!  The nice lady at the hospital transferred me the woman in billing to see if I can get a further discount off of this number.  Well, this lady (who's voice was filled with indifference, like she could care less about her job and the people she is talking to) that you have to make less than $29k between the 2 of us to qualify, oh and yes that is BEFORE taxes.  Well, I will go ahead and admit that we make a little more than that!!   

So what am I to do.  Do I put us on a payment plan and have to see it come out of our bank account for the next 2 years.  Or do we suck it up and pay all the money and think about what a huge waste it was and our bank account will be depleted.  I know we are going to have to pay some money, and we have had the most wonderful outpouring of love from family and friends supporting us financially.  I have held this money in a separate account just for this purpose, but I feel that I should still be respectful of those gifts and make sure we are not just throwing it aimlessly at the hospital and giving it to our IC. 

This post is by no means a beg for money. I hope that no one reads it this way.  This is just what I am dealing with and this blog is my dumping ground.  Most of the time when I put this "stuff" here I am able to move on and focus on other things or in some cases get my head around what is bothering me. 

A few prayer requests: 
Pray that I have the strength to not yell at the lady in billing. 
Pray that we are able to find ways to find more money in our budget.
Pray that they will be willing to negotiate with us some. 
Pray that if I do have to pay this that I can come to peace with paying it and move forward and that we will be able to save this money up again for our hopeful future babies.

I guess this is what it boils down to.   That money was lovingly saved, music equipment sold, things that we went without so that we would be able to pay for their birth and walk away with the most precious babies in our arms debt free.  And now yes we can still walk away debt free, but our arms are still empty and that hurts.  We just wanted those babies and I would have paid more than 8k for them if I could have. I still would.

photo session

So, I love the photo's we just had taken, I had prepaid for a maternity session and didn't want to waste the money.  So, we tried to be as positive as possible and we turned it into a welcome to our new house and land.  All the pictures were take on our property.  At the very end, he took the shot of us holding my necklace.  I think that throughout my life I will always find new ways to remember our babies by.  Here are a few of the photos he put up on his blog. Here is Matt's blog:  click here

names in the sand

I can't tell you what a source of support I have found through this special group of women.  We have all come together because we have all lost a baby in one way or another.  As a mother you want to hear your babies name, you want to talk about them and you think about them all the time.  As a mother of angel babies sometimes there isn't anything new to say.  They are not eating new foods or learning new things; they are in heaven.  Yes its nice to think they are with my Grandfather, but when friends and family ask how I am doing there isn't anything new to say. 

In this group we have started a tradition of writing our babies names in the sand.  Part of what is so special is that each woman who writes the name knows how important it will be to the mommy.  I am looking forward to doing this next month when I go to the beach.

Shanna was visiting the San Fransisco beaches last week and here is our tribute to our boys!

our trees

On the twins due date, Chris and I broke out the shovels and planted 2 peach trees and 2 rose bushes.  I think it was therapeutic in a way.  I put a circle around one of the trees, the idea is that eventually when we walk down to the pond we will be walking in a canopy of trees. To the right is the garden that we will eventually plant and that would keep the peach trees near it.

 

You can see them better in this picture!  They are little trees, but then so were our babies.

this blogs 1 year anny

Wow, has it really been only a year since I have started these ramblings?  Seems like so long ago and yet only a millisecond at the same time.  There has been a lot of heartache since the start of this blog.  It has not been the fun journey so far.  From infertility testing to finally getting pregnant for those few blissful months to losing those precious babies and dealing with the grief that comes with it.  Thank you all for sticking with me.  Thank you for those of you who have cried with me, loved our sons with us and said prayers for us.  My hopes are that in a year from now I can look back at this dark place that we have been stuck in and hopefully I will be seeing some light. 

Thanks for sticking with me and listening.  I think everyone wants to know that someone is listening and that they care.

meet my family

May 31st, 2010 is marked in my calendar in red with 2 hearts next to the words"twins due date"; it takes up the whole square.  All the prenatal classes were whited out and erased long ago, but this date will forever be written on my heart.  Today is my due date, today is the day that they will no long "supposed to be here".  Does that make sense?  Today they are officially truly gone, or it is just another reminder that they are gone. 
So to remember this day I want to introduce you to my family.  This is the only hour that we were all face to face, the 4 of us such a quiet little family.

Chris and I spent the hour staring trying to memorized their faces, we told them stories, prayed with them and told them that we loved them.  We tried to cram all the little things that we had been dreaming of doing with them, saying to them-into that one short hour.  I told them to "sleep tight and to not let the bed bugs bite, and that if they do, grab a shoe and say hey i didn't invite you!" This was my college roommate's and my nighttime ritual, I had envisioned little voices saying these words to me, instead of the stillness that was their birthday.

But our time with them was too short, 19 weeks and one morning were never going to be long enough to fit the lifetimes we had dreamed for them.  So when our nurse came into our room and asked if we were ready I knew that we never would be and that now was as good as later.  I said yes, I was exhausted and emotionally drained and Chris would never be ready to part with them, his sons. I will always remember the moment when my husband handed our babies to the nurse and the look on his face when the nurse walked away holding all our hopes and dreams knowing we would never have them as ours here on earth. 

Our little baby b, Benny, is in my left arm and our baby a, Abe is in my right; the nicknames that we came up for them right before we found out they were gone.  A funny inside joke that I even posted on this blog about so that I wouldn't forget it.  Little did I know how those names would stick.  We are lucky that our nurses were so kind and took pictures of our babies precious faces, and one day I might share them on here, but if you care and if we are ready we will show them to you if you want.  Friends have asked what they look like, they are beautiful they are whole.  They are tiny and perfectly formed.  The have Chris' lips, the lips I kiss every morning and evening, they had two sets of duplicate lips that I will never get to kiss.

Today should have been the day our babies were born, not that day in January. 

sweet text message

My youngest nephew who is almost two years old prayed for us all on his own tonight.  Just brought smiles to our faces imagining that precious face turned to God in prayer.  I hope we are able to teach our furture children to love God in the same way.

Thanks Kristy for letting us know and without further ado......that precious face!!!