Sunday, June 26, 2011

Talking and learning

There it was. In August of 2004, we lost baby #2. I was sad. I was disappointed. I had not yet felt like I had gotten over the first loss. But suddenly, now, I could talk about it. Maybe because I had been through it before. Maybe because people knew this time. Whatever the reason, it helped. Suddenly a bunch of people came out of the woodwork who had been through this. Some of my dear friends and even a cousin reached out to me as they had experienced miscarriage. I learned that there was something to having a support system. And now that I could talk about it, I learned from others. I learned that there could be reasons behind these losses. Medical reasons. I learned that there were fertility specialists and medications. There were tests that could determine why pregnancy loss occurs.

I talked to my doctor about it. I was floored to learn that a patient isn't referred for any of this kind of testing until after three miscarriages. Since I could get pregnant, I wasn't considered infertile, so I couldn't just go see a fertility specialist, insurance would never pay for it. Insurance also wouldn't pay for any testing for the miscarriages because I hadn't had three.

To this day I don't understand that. Why would a medical professional wish another miscarriage upon a person in order to do testing? It also makes no sense that insurance companies would want to wait. I looked at the medical bills of a subsequent miscarriage and the hospital bill alone was over $10,000. I paid $100 of that. If the insurance company had paid for testing prior to that and discovered that all I needed was a pill, they would have saved $9,900. But wait, they won't cover the cost of that pill anyway.

To clarify, I didn't only just need a pill, I am stating that hypothetically because in many instances and for many women that is the solution. For me, it wasn't, and I will continue to document my story and details in further posts. But it frustrated me how short sighted the insurance companies were. I was extra ticked off just knowing that I may have to go through another miscarriage just to get some answers. I didn't feel like I could do that.

No comments: