By the Numbers

Today is November 28: four months exactly since Weston died. I have been feeling a little numb over the past few days, probably for a couple of reasons. First, my mind and heart are giving me a break after Thanksgiving hell and at the official start of the Christmas season. And second, I finally got sick.

I don't get sick very often, but I am surprised it took this long. If you don't include the all-encompassing, constant physical pain I experienced in the weeks following Weston's death, the no eating for a week (was that all?!), my messed-up sleep schedule, the pain in my incision I still feel when I get really emotional, my now-nonexistent alcohol tolerance, the physical reactions I sometimes experience when people do/say/type really horrible things, and my Thanksgiving panic attack, well, this is the first time I have been sick since Weston died. This surprises me because I learned at the grief conference that parents report a much higher incidence of illness and general physical malaise for the rest of their lives after losing children. So much to look forward to.

This is probably one reason why I have been so obsessive about eating healthily and exercising lately. (The not taking a break from exercising when I started to feel run down largely contributed to my getting sick, I'm certain.) If I am going to generally be sicker for the REST OF MY LIFE, I had sure better start out with a healthy body and strong immune system.

So, Shannon came home from work yesterday and took care of Caroline. He ended up taking her on a little road trip to Payson, which was fun for both of them (and Grandma and Grandpa). I stayed in bed and read the Sunday edition of the New York Times uninterrupted. That would have been blissful if Caroline was truly my only child.

I was feeling pretty blah about everything today (that is actually pretty good) until I went to pick up Caroline's Christmas present. I found the gift on Craigslist, so I met the seller at a grocery store. I had told her the gift was for my three-year-old daughter. She was showing me all of the parts, remarking that her sons loved playing with it, and then...the dreaded, but totally innocent, question: "So, is your daughter your only child?" And here is why I MUST reinvent myself from my normally chatterbox self. If I had not told her the gift was for my daughter (because what adult would not want a wooden Melissa and Doug train set?), she would have never asked the question.

Weston is my child, and I will never leave him out of my family. But simply saying, "No, I also have a son" will prompt more questions, until I have to say something really horrible, like, "No, my son will actually never get to enjoy this train set because he is DEAD." So, I just said, "She is my only living child." And...crickets. Followed by, "Well, I hope she really enjoys it." Then I, oh so breezily, said, "Oh, she will love it. She has really been into trains lately." Yep, I'm breezy; it is NO BIG DEAL that I have a dead child, lady.

I don't blame her for anything, really; I probably would have done the same thing. Now, though, if I were put in her position, I would ask follow-up questions, and we would both have a good cry and then become friends. Because new friends are impossible to come by after losing a child, unless they have lost a child too. My pre-Weston friends are wonderful, and I am so glad they're in my life, but new friends with all-living children just are not in the cards.

Anyway, how did I get off on that tangent before even starting? The real purpose of this post is number-crunching. I paid what I hope is the last medical bill yesterday. Life goes on; in addition to this mountain of grief that has consumed our lives, we still have bills to pay.

We have pretty good health insurance through Shannon's job. All of Weston's and my care was covered, fortunately. Last year around this time, we had the opportunity to enroll in a high-deductible plan, which meant that our premiums would be very low but that we would have to pay for 100% of our medical care until we hit our deductible. We opted out of it because we expected that I would be pregnant for most of 2012, I would have monthly OB visits, and then there would have been childbirth and baby checkups to pay for. If I had had a normal pregnancy, this would have made the most financial sense for us.

Of course, no one expects the unthinkable. We would have saved a few thousand dollars if we had chosen the high-deductible plan. And guess what we chose for next year?

Anyway, I had two perinatologist visits, spent twenty-seven nights in the hospital, had one c-section, and countless ultrasounds and other diagnostic procedures. Weston had three weeks of intensive care.

The final bill: about $367,000. That's roughly $100,000 for me and $267,000 for Weston.

Out of pocket expenses for us: about $8,300. It will be $9,200 if a certain entity does not pick up part of the tab. That does not include prescriptions for me and a hospital-grade breast pump rental. This is a lot of money. Fortunately, we had a savings account, so the bills will not financially devastate us or put us in debt.

Monetarily, we got off lucky. I read a book called A Pound of Hope about twins born at 24 weeks, same as Weston. Their mother did not have a lengthy hospital stay before they were born, though. I ordered this book, and it arrived, while Weston was alive. I read it after he died. Don't ask my why I did that. That is a topic for another day.

Anyway, both twins survived. Being so premature, they were in the NICU for a very long time. The parents had health insurance, but there were a lot of exclusions, so not everything was covered. The final bill for the first year of the boys' lives was $2.1 MILLION. And the parents were billed an amount that was four times their annual income. Financially, they lost everything: the father's business (because he spent so much time at the hospital with the twins), the mother's job (because the nanny she hired quit the day before she was supposed to start; she was not comfortable taking care of special needs babies), their house, everything.

The author (the mom)'s point was that there is amazing medical technology and expertise that can save these unbelievably fragile babies, but at what cost? It should not have to financially devastate families.

(Of course, I'd take financial devastation any day if I could have Weston back. But that's not the point of this post.)

Initially, I had to spend a lot of time on the phone with my health insurance company, with these providers, and others. I made it clear that we were not going to skip out on the bills, so I was never getting hounded by creditors, but STILL. Some of these people need sensitivity training. Having to deal with bills, insurance, etc. in the wake of losing a child is unbearable. One woman actually called ME and wanted me to give her my Social Security number and other personal information so she could tell me how much money I owed! She got really snotty when I refused to give her that information.

Dealing with my grief over losing Weston is a full-time job. It takes up my entire brain. I was an insurance lawyer for five years, and I was still having trouble understanding how our health insurance coverage works. Being financially devastated or dealing with creditors on top of all this would be even more awful.

I'm not really sure of the point of this post. Looking back at the end of 2011, when we were thinking about our expected medical needs for 2012, I was laughably naive. Ironically, if Weston had lived, our bills would be much, much higher. I might have had to go back to work. I learned that babies don't just go home from the NICU and live happily ever after. They often go home with oxygen tanks and require doctor visits multiple times a week, if not every day, for months. They also have very weak immune systems and literally can't leave the house for YEARS (except to go to the doctor). No daycare for them.

I wish I had those problems. Instead, I have empty arms and a full bank account. Lucky me. (I am not making light of this issue. The parents in that book had an incredibly difficult and stressful road with two such fragile babies. I know: I walked that road for three weeks. But their babies lived and, eventually, thrived. They got their happy ending.)

In the end, the only number that really matters is -1. That number will forever define my family and my life.