I was supposed to meet a friend of mine for brunch this weekend. The plan was to maybe go to church and then hang out for a bit as it’s been forever since I’ve seen her. So I sent her a text on Saturday night checking to see if we were still on. She texted back – I hope you don’t kill me, but I decided to go to the beach. Can we meet up when I get back (5 or so)? I figured it was a bummer, but a last weekend at the beach for the summer was hard to pass up, so no biggie. It’d be a little harder schedule-wise, but we could meet at 5.
She called me the next morning around 11 – on her way to beach! It wasn’t a weekend at the beach; it was a day trip to the Chesapeake – so basically just a better offer. I was a bit “less cool” with that, but if you know this friend, it’s really not worth getting mad at her for, so whatever. Well then 5 o’clock became 6 o’clock. And 6 became, why don’t you leave your house at 5:45 or 6, which meant 6:30. I hadn’t seen her in a long time and wanted to head in, so I did, but starting out at that time is just not wise for my munchkin. I figured I’d hang out for an hour or little longer at the most so I could be headed out of the city (crossing the bridge) by 8 at the latest. As I sat in the restaurant and baby sweetness decided to start full on screaming with her crying, I wondered what I was thinking in even dreaming I could maneuver the schedule at all. See this is one of those friends who works on her own time – really, in her own time zone. 8 pm really means 9, which really means I’m leaving at 9 and will be there at 9:30. She doesn’t have a car or license, so I used to always plan to pick her up to go places, so I wouldn’t be the first one there – by an hour or more. I’d generally wind up sitting around her apartment for 45 minutes to an hour while she finished showering and getting ready (though to her credit, she usually fed me or gave me drinks in that time. There was one particular birthday (mine) where I did sit starving while she got ready for an hour or so, but then again the ‘errand’ she had me run on the way to the restaurant turned out to be my surprise party, so you have to respect the balance!).
The thing is I accepted this fluidity in her timing as one of her quirks. Sure it sometimes bothered me, but mostly I knew that’s how things went and laughed at her. If I REALLY felt like I needed to be someplace, I told her I was picking her up half an hour earlier (and really, only once (that I recall) did I wind up sitting on the steps of her building waiting for her to come from her partying the night before so that we could head out to go whitewater rafting). Anyway, you see the pattern? And you see I was complicit (although she is a force of nature, so I, in no way, believe I could affect change!). But now I’m finding it harder to be complicit. Because I have a baby.
And so I am THAT woman. That woman that says – you have to work around my schedule because I have a baby. That woman. On the one hand, I can pretty easily argue that it’s rude to consistently change plans and run late regardless of one’s procreative status, but it’s especially hard to plan kids’ schedules around that. It turned out that the munchkin wailed most of the way home, only to fall asleep 10 minutes out from our condo. She woke up when we got inside and then cried to be let out of the car seat and screamed while I walked the dog (I’m sure the neighbors loved that as we walked by their places) and it was hard to put her down for the night. On the other hand, though, what I’m saying is suggesting that we need to change the nature and balance of our friendship – because I now have children.
I don’t think I’d feel so bad about suggesting we now need to follow my schedule (well, the baby’s schedule) rather than hers if, as I explained this to my husband, his reaction had not been – well she just doesn’t understand! Oh man! That one cuts through the heart! How many times have I heard mother’s say that about their childless friends? I swear it was a refrain in conversation from one of my friends. I’ve written about her before – you just don’t understand – I have NO time. I can’t ever take a break or take time for myself because I don’t have time. (Note – this is not a single mother and her baby was fine taking a bottle.) You don’t have kids, so you don’t understand. I couldn’t bother to blow dry my hair before showing up for my best friend’s wedding as her matron of honor because I have NO time because I have a 6 month old baby. You just don’t understand . (For the record, I have a 6 month old and I still have to say I just don’t understand that one.)
Truth be told, I didn’t understand. I now see that this is more than a full time job and downtime has vanished. There are days where I feel like I go ALL DAY. When the baby finally goes down, I am washing bottles and folding laundry to prepare for the run tomorrow. I do sometimes envy my husband’s ability to relax with a beer at the end of a rough day because I don’t feel my day is over yet. I envy him the ability to have “one too many” at a wedding because he doesn’t have to worry about nursing at 3 am – or about being “fuzzy” and unable to catch up before her wake up call comes all too early.
But mostly – I don’t care so much about having “one too many” and most days are not the “those days.” Most days I really enjoy her for a good part of the day (no, not all day. Are you nuts? Somewhere in the course of the day, there are dirty diapers or my back aches from picking her up or she wants me at a moment that I want me!). And even some “bad” days, my husband takes over and I head to the bathroom for a bubble bath with a book and maybe even a glass of wine. Because I’m not doing this on my own and “me time” is still an option now. Sure there’s not nearly as much of it as there was before, but now I get this amazing before unknown “baby time.” And it’s wonderful – more so than I could have imagined. I didn’t know how great that could be. I admit it – I didn’t understand.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Office cryogenics
I am ALWAYS cold. It doesn’t matter. I kept waiting for that point in pregnancy where you’re too hot (esp. as I was due in February), but it never came. I just had to keep looking for bigger coats. The only heat change I had was that I couldn’t stand heat in the first trimester. I wasn’t hotter than normal, but if I got hot, it made the nausea worse.
So offices are ALWAYS cold to me. I am always the one sitting in a meeting with a pashmina or scarf wrapped around me or a space heater hidden under my desk. My fingers are always freezing so that I have to switch my engagement band to the other hand to keep it from banging around. A good friend of mine used to use my hands as her personal AC system in the summer – it would take them forever to warm up, so she’d ask me to put my little icicles on the back of her neck to cool her off when it was 90 degrees.
So when I sat freezing my tush off in my office today, I didn’t think anything of it. I figured this was par for the course. As my fingers and toes froze, I figured that was normal – though when my face started to get really cold, I thought it was getting to be a bit much. I IM’d another coworker who told me that she was cold too (but had her space heater on), but OK fine. Then this afternoon one of my coworkers (a guy in this case for those going with the theory that women are always cold) walked in and said – my God, it’s cold in here! I think it’s 10 degrees colder in here than elsewhere – certainly colder than in my office. Apparently he has a little key chain thermometer in his office – showing it was 68. The gradations were very hard to read, but it was definitely below 65. I emailed a friend I used to work with (who always used to make fun of how cold I always was) – he suggested that maybe they were preserving me for future use…
So offices are ALWAYS cold to me. I am always the one sitting in a meeting with a pashmina or scarf wrapped around me or a space heater hidden under my desk. My fingers are always freezing so that I have to switch my engagement band to the other hand to keep it from banging around. A good friend of mine used to use my hands as her personal AC system in the summer – it would take them forever to warm up, so she’d ask me to put my little icicles on the back of her neck to cool her off when it was 90 degrees.
So when I sat freezing my tush off in my office today, I didn’t think anything of it. I figured this was par for the course. As my fingers and toes froze, I figured that was normal – though when my face started to get really cold, I thought it was getting to be a bit much. I IM’d another coworker who told me that she was cold too (but had her space heater on), but OK fine. Then this afternoon one of my coworkers (a guy in this case for those going with the theory that women are always cold) walked in and said – my God, it’s cold in here! I think it’s 10 degrees colder in here than elsewhere – certainly colder than in my office. Apparently he has a little key chain thermometer in his office – showing it was 68. The gradations were very hard to read, but it was definitely below 65. I emailed a friend I used to work with (who always used to make fun of how cold I always was) – he suggested that maybe they were preserving me for future use…
Friday, September 4, 2009
THAT woman
I can’t believe I just became that woman. That woman who says things judgmentally to other moms or questions their decisions. I can’t believe I did. The boob police must be getting to me – their brainwashing is working.
I was having lunch with a friend of mine today whose daughter is 9 ½ months old. She told me she was trying to stop breastfeeding, but ‘couldn’t’ so she guessed she’d continue. And I asked “why?” And not just that inquisitive – oh, why is that? But that truly perplexed look of – why would you do that now? I didn’t mean to! It came out before I even thought about it. Really what I meant was ‘why now particularly?’ Like why at 9 months? I know lots of people go for 6 months (because then they start food) or a year (because then they don’t require the vitamins anymore) or two or three years (because they are crazy. Oh God… I did it again.). I just wondered why at 9 months. I also wondered what she meant that she couldn’t stop…
Her first answer was – well, she’s almost 10 months old! So I knew she’d taken my question as I’d asked it rather than how I’d really meant it. She went on to explain that after pumping for 9 months (her daughter won’t take it “on tap”), she was really tired of it and just wanted to stop. But apparently her body didn’t want to stop, so she had to keep pumping to relieve the pressure.
I’ll work on my table manners for next time.
I was having lunch with a friend of mine today whose daughter is 9 ½ months old. She told me she was trying to stop breastfeeding, but ‘couldn’t’ so she guessed she’d continue. And I asked “why?” And not just that inquisitive – oh, why is that? But that truly perplexed look of – why would you do that now? I didn’t mean to! It came out before I even thought about it. Really what I meant was ‘why now particularly?’ Like why at 9 months? I know lots of people go for 6 months (because then they start food) or a year (because then they don’t require the vitamins anymore) or two or three years (because they are crazy. Oh God… I did it again.). I just wondered why at 9 months. I also wondered what she meant that she couldn’t stop…
Her first answer was – well, she’s almost 10 months old! So I knew she’d taken my question as I’d asked it rather than how I’d really meant it. She went on to explain that after pumping for 9 months (her daughter won’t take it “on tap”), she was really tired of it and just wanted to stop. But apparently her body didn’t want to stop, so she had to keep pumping to relieve the pressure.
I’ll work on my table manners for next time.
Insurance
I submitted receipts yesterday to my flexible spending card account for a number of different things associated with my daughter’s birth. Checking today, one was denied. I looked at the receipt – it’s a charge for $147 that covers my portion of nursery / norm newborn, pharmacy, drugs/other, lab/chemistry, lab/hematology and recovery room. All the denial says is – “this product or service does not qualify under this plan.” This HEALTHCARE plan! Look, I know that you can use the FSA card for things you shouldn’t and then you have to pay it back (or your card is suspended) because the thing works like a credit card. But what part of the nursery, labs, drugs and recovery room sounds to them like I went out and bought a pair of pretty shoes with the card?
This denial is reminding me of my early insurance woes which I had not previously told you about – so let me share here. When my daughter was born we decided to put her on my husband’s insurance (as we weren’t entirely sure about my job plans). I was not on his insurance because we were midway through the pregnancy when it came time to change plans for the new year and I didn’t want to worry about what was covered / if my doctor would be included / how much that would confuse them…
So when her initial bills came – we submitted them to his (or her) insurance. They denied them because apparently newborn care is counted under the mother’s maternity care, not the baby insurance. Since we weren’t on the same plan, we needed to submit them to my plan. So we did. Well my plan denied them because she wasn’t added to my plan. My husband called. After a very long discussion, it was determined that yes, in fact, they should pay them. Awhile passed and we received another notice on the bills – still unpaid by my insurance. I called them back. After several calls and a printed copy of the page from their website that showed that maternity care includes the newborn’s first 48 hours in the hospital, they agreed that they should pay them – but explained that they were unable to because she wasn’t on my insurance, so how did they know this was my baby? Really. That was seriously their answer. So despite the fact that they’d covered my OB claims for February 12th, which included a live birth, they couldn’t be sure that this claim on February 12th for a baby girl who shared my last name was really my child. Ok, well easy enough to remedy –
Me: I’ll send you a copy of her birth certificate.
Insurance company: No, that won’t work.
[Take a minute here to factor in the time it took for my jaw to drop at the ridiculousness of that.]
Me: Why not? It’s a legal document
Insurance: We can’t accept that. She has to be on your insurance, so that her name is added to your policy.
Me: But we haven’t added her to my insurance. She’s on my husband’s insurance. And it’s too late to add her (even if that was what I really wanted to do) because it’s more than 60 days since her birth.
Insurance: That’s the only way we can do it.
Me: But how will that help? The bill is coming in as “Baby Girl” under my last name. If we add her, it’ll be her actual name – which shows my husband’s last name. This isn’t going to line up to the patient name.
Insurance: No, that wouldn’t matter. We understand that with newborns.
[So you don’t understand that via a birth certificate, but you do get the name thing…?]
Me: So how do I add her? Do I have to PAY to add her?
Insurance: That can only be done through your benefits coordinator through your job.
I’ll sum up that after SEVERAL calls and emails with the benefits coordinator, my daughter actually had to be added (luckily in name only, no premium) to my insurance for the first month after her birth so that they could pay the bills that were due under MY benefits.
Given all that, you can imagine how much I am looking forward to calling the insurance today to figure out why labs, nursery care and recovery room are not considered eligible medical expenses for my flexible spending. Because keep in mind – this isn’t an issue of what’s now covered by my insurance. This is actually MY money – the money I elected to go into a healthcare account at the beginning of the year so I could use pre-tax money for my healthcare expenses. They just aren’t counting these as healthcare. ARGH. It’s really unfair that you can’t drink while breastfeeding when you have to talk to this many insurance people in the first year…
PS – 25 minutes of hold music later… it was processed under the wrong claim code and will be reprocessed / approved. Ugh.
This denial is reminding me of my early insurance woes which I had not previously told you about – so let me share here. When my daughter was born we decided to put her on my husband’s insurance (as we weren’t entirely sure about my job plans). I was not on his insurance because we were midway through the pregnancy when it came time to change plans for the new year and I didn’t want to worry about what was covered / if my doctor would be included / how much that would confuse them…
So when her initial bills came – we submitted them to his (or her) insurance. They denied them because apparently newborn care is counted under the mother’s maternity care, not the baby insurance. Since we weren’t on the same plan, we needed to submit them to my plan. So we did. Well my plan denied them because she wasn’t added to my plan. My husband called. After a very long discussion, it was determined that yes, in fact, they should pay them. Awhile passed and we received another notice on the bills – still unpaid by my insurance. I called them back. After several calls and a printed copy of the page from their website that showed that maternity care includes the newborn’s first 48 hours in the hospital, they agreed that they should pay them – but explained that they were unable to because she wasn’t on my insurance, so how did they know this was my baby? Really. That was seriously their answer. So despite the fact that they’d covered my OB claims for February 12th, which included a live birth, they couldn’t be sure that this claim on February 12th for a baby girl who shared my last name was really my child. Ok, well easy enough to remedy –
Me: I’ll send you a copy of her birth certificate.
Insurance company: No, that won’t work.
[Take a minute here to factor in the time it took for my jaw to drop at the ridiculousness of that.]
Me: Why not? It’s a legal document
Insurance: We can’t accept that. She has to be on your insurance, so that her name is added to your policy.
Me: But we haven’t added her to my insurance. She’s on my husband’s insurance. And it’s too late to add her (even if that was what I really wanted to do) because it’s more than 60 days since her birth.
Insurance: That’s the only way we can do it.
Me: But how will that help? The bill is coming in as “Baby Girl” under my last name. If we add her, it’ll be her actual name – which shows my husband’s last name. This isn’t going to line up to the patient name.
Insurance: No, that wouldn’t matter. We understand that with newborns.
[So you don’t understand that via a birth certificate, but you do get the name thing…?]
Me: So how do I add her? Do I have to PAY to add her?
Insurance: That can only be done through your benefits coordinator through your job.
I’ll sum up that after SEVERAL calls and emails with the benefits coordinator, my daughter actually had to be added (luckily in name only, no premium) to my insurance for the first month after her birth so that they could pay the bills that were due under MY benefits.
Given all that, you can imagine how much I am looking forward to calling the insurance today to figure out why labs, nursery care and recovery room are not considered eligible medical expenses for my flexible spending. Because keep in mind – this isn’t an issue of what’s now covered by my insurance. This is actually MY money – the money I elected to go into a healthcare account at the beginning of the year so I could use pre-tax money for my healthcare expenses. They just aren’t counting these as healthcare. ARGH. It’s really unfair that you can’t drink while breastfeeding when you have to talk to this many insurance people in the first year…
PS – 25 minutes of hold music later… it was processed under the wrong claim code and will be reprocessed / approved. Ugh.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
First day of school pictures
My cousin just sent a note to tell me about taking her daughter to her first day of first grade (yes, in her Catholic school uniform!). She said that they took pictures at the house, but also in front of the school – but she assured me she wasn’t the only one. LOTS of parents were “as crazy as her” taking pictures in front of the school. I must be getting into this parent role as that didn’t seem whatsoever crazy to me! She told me that my munchkin would be there in no time as the years flew, so I should enjoy every moment.
Talk about the years flying – I started thinking back to my own going to school pictures. My Mom would take a few of my brother and me in front of the fireplace and then stand us on the steps – our backpacks on and carrying our little (still metal then!) lunchboxes. (My first grade lunchbox was Holly Hobby. I thought it was the greatest thing! I was so excited to use that in kindergarten (which was half day), I convinced my Mom to pack my lunch in it at the kitchen counter so I could carry it over to the table in the box and open it up to eat it.) I don’t know how much earlier we had to get up that first day to get all the pictures taken! The ritual was then repeated on scout days when I could wear my brownie uniform (and my brother his cub scout one) to school instead of my regular uniform.
Those are great pictures. The oldest include my name tag which my Mom had sewn on a heart shaped piece of felt – it had my name, grade, classroom number and “walker” to indicate I didn’t take a bus or need a ride. (Can you imagine that now – letting your 5 year old walk to school without an adult?) The last ones go through high school - even college move in day (in that case, a wary look on my face as I'm stuffeed into the backseat with the car packed to the gills!)
I know that my own daughter will be posing for these pictures and going off to school before I know it because it seems like just yesterday that I was. I think I’m ready to start sniffling just thinking of it! Man, I’m going to be a mess!
One of my coworkers talked about her daughter’s first day of school. She was worried and her husband said – she’ll probably be nervous and may cry, but then she’ll get on the bus and go to school. Well, he had the symptoms right, just not the patient. He was nervous. She cried. And their daughter got on the bus with no fuss!
Talk about the years flying – I started thinking back to my own going to school pictures. My Mom would take a few of my brother and me in front of the fireplace and then stand us on the steps – our backpacks on and carrying our little (still metal then!) lunchboxes. (My first grade lunchbox was Holly Hobby. I thought it was the greatest thing! I was so excited to use that in kindergarten (which was half day), I convinced my Mom to pack my lunch in it at the kitchen counter so I could carry it over to the table in the box and open it up to eat it.) I don’t know how much earlier we had to get up that first day to get all the pictures taken! The ritual was then repeated on scout days when I could wear my brownie uniform (and my brother his cub scout one) to school instead of my regular uniform.
Those are great pictures. The oldest include my name tag which my Mom had sewn on a heart shaped piece of felt – it had my name, grade, classroom number and “walker” to indicate I didn’t take a bus or need a ride. (Can you imagine that now – letting your 5 year old walk to school without an adult?) The last ones go through high school - even college move in day (in that case, a wary look on my face as I'm stuffeed into the backseat with the car packed to the gills!)
I know that my own daughter will be posing for these pictures and going off to school before I know it because it seems like just yesterday that I was. I think I’m ready to start sniffling just thinking of it! Man, I’m going to be a mess!
One of my coworkers talked about her daughter’s first day of school. She was worried and her husband said – she’ll probably be nervous and may cry, but then she’ll get on the bus and go to school. Well, he had the symptoms right, just not the patient. He was nervous. She cried. And their daughter got on the bus with no fuss!
Flashback – girls in Catholic school uniforms at Target
I saw the red plaid and it all came back to me like an acid trip gone bad. It’s back to school time and that flapping plaid flying towards me was attached to little legs and little arms carrying back to school lists! Those are uniforms!
Now I never wore a red (or, OK, it was really maroon) uniform. My early uniform was green and blue – little jumpers with yellow or white shirts – the best of which had Peter Pan collars. I would wear a little cardigan over it – blue or white (why white, I have no idea) – possibly just the top button was buttoned. And my hair would be styled – most often in two long braids on either side with green and blue streamered barrettes (do you remember those things?) on the sides.
Then came middle school – the school didn’t change, but the uniform did that year. Not only did we move to the upper grades where you could wear a skirt and vest or sweater instead of the jumper, but the school changed its uniform and the design was now a gray plaid with navy sweater (and UGH uniform saddle shoes!).
High school was a black watch plaid (blue and green again) skirt with a blue sweater in the winter, but a hideous blue and white pin striped skirt with a (reasonably nice) blue logo polo for the warmer months.
But it didn’t matter that I’d never worn THAT uniform or those colors. I looked at the two girls going into Target – the little one in her jumper (with Peter Pan collared shirt!) and the bigger one in her skirt with the white shirt (not a fairy tale character near that collar!) untucked and as messy as she could make it and it all came flying back! It’s funny how things change though. I can remember desperately throwing off the awful vest and untucking my shirt / pushing down my socks as quickly as could upon leaving school grounds! They were horrible / awful! Didn’t I look so much better in my disregard for them? (Amusingly, I often wouldn’t bother changing if I wasn’t doing anything in particular – why bother? The damn thing was Teflon as far as I was concerned. I may as well wear it as I didn’t want to get my REAL clothes dirty!) Now I saw the bigger girl looking all rumpled and disheveled in her half discarded uniform and thought – what a mess. My God I must be getting OLD!
Now I never wore a red (or, OK, it was really maroon) uniform. My early uniform was green and blue – little jumpers with yellow or white shirts – the best of which had Peter Pan collars. I would wear a little cardigan over it – blue or white (why white, I have no idea) – possibly just the top button was buttoned. And my hair would be styled – most often in two long braids on either side with green and blue streamered barrettes (do you remember those things?) on the sides.
Then came middle school – the school didn’t change, but the uniform did that year. Not only did we move to the upper grades where you could wear a skirt and vest or sweater instead of the jumper, but the school changed its uniform and the design was now a gray plaid with navy sweater (and UGH uniform saddle shoes!).
High school was a black watch plaid (blue and green again) skirt with a blue sweater in the winter, but a hideous blue and white pin striped skirt with a (reasonably nice) blue logo polo for the warmer months.
But it didn’t matter that I’d never worn THAT uniform or those colors. I looked at the two girls going into Target – the little one in her jumper (with Peter Pan collared shirt!) and the bigger one in her skirt with the white shirt (not a fairy tale character near that collar!) untucked and as messy as she could make it and it all came flying back! It’s funny how things change though. I can remember desperately throwing off the awful vest and untucking my shirt / pushing down my socks as quickly as could upon leaving school grounds! They were horrible / awful! Didn’t I look so much better in my disregard for them? (Amusingly, I often wouldn’t bother changing if I wasn’t doing anything in particular – why bother? The damn thing was Teflon as far as I was concerned. I may as well wear it as I didn’t want to get my REAL clothes dirty!) Now I saw the bigger girl looking all rumpled and disheveled in her half discarded uniform and thought – what a mess. My God I must be getting OLD!
Y’all are good baby makers
We were in Babies R Us the other day and happened to be in line behind a very young couple. (They looked about 17. OK, they were probably in their early 20’s, but the looked about 17!) The wife came over to look at our munchkin and turned to us to say – “Aw, y’all are good baby makers!”
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