Jane and I just got back from her pregnancy week 19, second trimester doctor appointment. Everything went great and we got to listen to baby Tarzan’s heartbeat again! He’s doing great and growing up to be a big strong boy.
As we left the doctor’s office, I went to the counter and paid my $528.00 (see updated cost of having a baby page) and asked how much extra would we have to pay if by small chance Jane had to have a C-section. Her answer was an additional $200 or so.
OK, not as much as I was expecting – considering we’re shelling out $528 every visit, which is their nice little payment plan, we’re already paying her thousands. So thank goodness.
Jane had to get more blood work today since she’s 19 weeks pregnant so that wasn’t too bad this time around. One test cost $37. I can handle those payments.
But today, I was on a mission. I’m tired of waiting to hear from the woman who I’ve called 4 times, left 2 messages in the past week. Well, more than a week I guess. She’s supposed to be the one to talk to – to find out how much the hospital side of things would cost to have a baby. So I called the hospital directly and spoke to someone in the admissions department.
Wow. I actually reached a real, live human. I nearly chocked on my words as I started to speak while I snapped out of my state of shock that I was actually talking to someone. I asked her the magical question, “how much is it to have a baby without maternity insurance there?” I went onto say that my wife is currently 19 weeks pregnant, her doctor is there, and our baby will be born in July.
So, here’s what she told me…
The Cost From The Hospital
The normal cost for a 2-day stay at the hospital for a vaginal delivery is $13,000. If Jane had to have a C-Section, the cost to have our baby would jump to $20,000. I then said, OK. Now what about for someone who does not have maternity insurance who will be paying cash upfront?
The cost drops waaaaaaay down for this. (Thank God.) The cost for the 2-day stay for a vaginal delivery drops down to $3,300. If she needed to have a C-Section, the cost is $5,000. However, there is one catch. We would need to register Jane at the hospital or online (whatever that means) AND have $3,300 paid entirely upfront at least one month before our baby is born.
OK. I asked if there are any other costs. She said yes, anesthesia, and gave me there number. I then said, we’re having a boy. How much to circumcise him? $250 she said. OK. And how about (knock on wood) if by tiny chance our baby needed to be in the NICU for whatever reason, like he was born a day early or something. She said that costs $2,000 per day for the stay and if needed they’d work out some sort of a payment plan. I didn’t want to know any more about that as I’m sure Jane and I will have a nice and healthy baby boy.
After asking how much this or that costs, I began to feel like I was ordering strange items from a very, very expensive restaurant to-go. I had to hang up the phone with her to get rid of the strange mental images that began appearing in my mind.
After a few minutes of talking to Jane, I then called the anesthesia department. A woman answers, “Yo, whachya up homebooooy? You be wantin’ some a’ this stuff here? We be gotten a really good deal on some gooooood stuff. What you be wanten’?” Obviously she must have been sampling some of their own products. I told her…. OK, just kidding!
She actually answered with a “hi, this is so-and-so, how many I help you?” I told her the situation and she told me it would be $1,200. She was nice and pleasant to speak to. Very helpful, too.
She explained that the $1,200 would need to be paid the day before Jane delivered our little boy. I then asked her about a C-Section and she said that that would add an additional $150 a day for something I think she called P.O.P? Not sure. I asked if there were any other costs and she said no, that’s all.
The Total Hospital Cost To Have Our Baby
Hospital charge for a 2-day stay, vaginal delivery (needs to be paid 1 month before delivery): $3,300.00
Hospital charge (for a C-Section): $5,000
Anesthesia department: $1,200
So if all goes well, which Pregnant Jane and I know it will, the total to be paid to the hospital and anesthesia department one month before delivery is: $4,500.00.
Now add in what we’ve been paying to her doctor and what we still need to pay, PLUS some surprises that I learned about today like another ultrasound that would need to be done at the hospital, more blood tests, etc… I’m going to guesstimate that total (from the baby cost page)… I’m going to try and be a little high here, a total of: $5,000. I may be going too high, but I’m just going on the safe side here.
So as of this very moment, it looks like everything is going to cost us a total of: $9,500.00
If everything goes great, there are no other tests needed, and all is well, then that SHOULD be the most that everything costs us thanks to no maternity insurance. We’re not going to even talk about C-Section stuff or anything else because that’s not going to be needed. (Knock Knock Knock… knocking on wood again.)
Money For The Hospital And For Anesthesia
OK, not counting Jane’s doctor bills, blood work bills, any new ultrasound bills, etc. we need to come up with $4,500.00 that needs to be paid by say no later than June 15th, which would be a little more than a month before Baby Tarzan will be born into this world.
That’s a little more than 4 months from now. And you can bet your last peanut in your peanut jar that we’ll be paying these at least one month before baby Tarzan is born. Hell yeah. If not, the bill would go from $4,500 to over $15,000 between hospital and anesthesia “normal retail prices”.
How are we going to come up with this money?
We have a few choices:
1. See if we can get involved with the anesthesia lady and the blank market hospital drug business.
2. Make some new things happen in our businesses between now and then that creates an influx of cash.
3. Sell our house in less than a month and a half or so, figuring we wouldn’t close 35-40 days after it’s sold and use money we make from the house (fingers crossed!!!) and pay the bills with that money.
4. I sell about 13,862 gallons of my sperm to sperm banks around Texas. (Adding in extra money to pay for doctor appointments to take care of sprained wrists, carpal tunnel, magazines, and if the rumor is true, blindness.)
5. Emergency plan: Take advantage of one of the offers where I can get a few grand from my credit card using one of those checks they sent me, and not have to pay interest on that money until February, 2010. If I can’t get all $4,500 from one, do another… and another.. and another… eeks.
6. Plant a money tree in our backyard and toss some Miracle Gro on it.
The best thing to happen out of all of the above would be # 2. If Jane and I can make some magic things happen with our businesses, then we wouldn’t have to touch the money from the proceeds of our house if we can sell it by then.
And of course, I want to avoid # 5 like the black plague. We already have WAY too much credit card debt right now. That is something that haunts me every night before I go to sleep. I haven’t had credit card debt in six plus years. It makes me sick to my stomach that we have a LOT of credit card debt right now, but that’s another story for another day.
However, there is a plus side to this one. This would allow us to keep the money we have from our business and/or proceeds from our house and allow us to make payments to the credit card company or companies. Yet, there is a danger there. If we do not pay back each and EVERY single penny before the *interest free* period is up, all that interest is added that next month. Believe me, I’ve had that happen to me SEVERAL times. It’s no fun. We’d have to do all we can to pay off that baby FAST.
Note to self: Teach young Tarzan about credits cards, the dangers, the plusses, how to use them properly, and what not to do EARLY and keep reminding him about them… especially when he turns 18 so he doesn’t make the same mistakes I did back then.
So what does Tarzan think about all of this?
Well, paying a total of $9,500 our of our pocket (if I’m correct on a few assumptions I made of future bills) is a lot better than what I was expecting to pay. Although that doesn’t mean we’re any closer to being out of the woods yet. And that doesn’t mean I have a big smile on my face at this very moment. Coming up with an *extra* $4,500 out of thin air in just four months isn’t the easiest thing to do.
However, it can be done… I’ve done it before. Heck, when business was rocking and rolling, we could do that much, much faster. This damn economy puts a kink in things and no matter how many times I tried to do that over the past year, all of them failed. But if you first don’t succeed….
Yes, we’ll keep trying and trying again. There are several other BIG factors that come to play here. And I mean BIG factors. For one, and it’s something that I know many, many other small business owners are freaking out about… TAXES.
I have yet to bring in all of my documents for my 2008 taxes to my accountant. I’ll owe a big chunk. Nothing like the last several years, but still big chunk that will not be able to be paid. Jane’s taxes won’t be too bad and we’ll find a way to get those taken care of. But it’s mine that I’m freaking out about.
I’ll of course file an extension, which I usually do anyways. But usually it’s with a nice big check payable to Uncle Sam with a partial payment, with the rest due by August 15th. This time around, the extension will be sent with a piece of lint from my pocket… with the rest due by August 15th.
That is of course dancing around in my mind, brings up some worries and stress, but the first priority is to pay for baby Tarzan to be born, get those hospital bills paid early (which would save $9K or $10K or whatever) and then figure out taxes.
Arrrrghhh s#&% what a mess. But, Jane and I are taking one step at a time, we know what we’re up against, and we have some battle plans. If our house sells FAST and we close FAST and get moved into a new place FAST, I’m going to take a chance and use the majority to start up a couple of new businesses that I believe can take off quickly, instead of giving it to Uncle Sam right then. I’ll have a little time to play with, and if I were to gamble on anything right now, I’d be (and we are) putting all our money on me.
Jane and I of course have talked about ALL of the above at great length. We discuss everything all the time… many times a day and night. We’re always keeping our noses down and assessing the situation as things change. I guess you can say we’re totally micromanaging our lives right now, but we have to.
Pregnant Jane and I are preparing for battle.
With our house on the line, the potential to lose all the money we put down on it, credit card debt, taxes, slow/dead businesses that were once rocking and rolling like crazy, investments that went way south, and of course, the biggest of them all, a bouncing baby mini Tarzan on the way… we’ve got our battle gear on and we’re ready to battle this multi-headed monster. The names of the heads are: foreclosure, credit card debt, stress, bank accounts, taxes, car payments, and Fred. (Fred’s the nice guy out of the bunch.)
Ahhhh… adulthood. Oh how I miss the days of riding my bike on a sunny Thursday afternoon during summer vacation without a care in the world. As a soon-to-be father, realizing the true importance of making the most of our your childhood and savoring those moments is something that I’ll make sure Tarzan Junior does.
(Yes, I know I’ve called him Mini Tarzan, Baby Tarzan, Tarzan Junior, and who knows what else here. He has many names right now I guess!)
As a father, I’ll do everything I can to make little Tarzan’s childhood fun and full of incredible memories.
And when he’s 10 or 11, and we’re having a blast digging for treasure, playing baseball, fishing, camping, or whatever, I may even say to him…
“Do everything you can now to enjoy these days where everything seems perfect; when you don’t have a care in the world. These are the days that you’ll remember the most when you’re older. Because, when you’re all grown up and you’re an adult, you’ll have this thing called ‘responsibility’. And take it from me, sometimes it isn’t always easy. Sometimes life gets in the way. And sometimes, you need to pull up memories from your mind of days just like this, where everything is prefect, and you don’t have a care in the world, in order to keep pushing forward to take care of your responsibilities. And then, as funny as this may sound, once you’re a lot older, you’ll come full circle, seeking days where everything is perfect, and where you don’t have a care in the world. Some people call that retirement, I guess. So soak up each and every single last drop of childhood, son. And believe me, I’ll help make sure you do because I’m having just as much fun as you are on those perfect days.”
Huh. Although no one ever told me this, I’m guessing that children sometimes can take us, as parents, back to that magical place where everything is prefect in the world. A place where nothing else matters but having fun, laughing, and playing. Maybe that’s why parents love to play with their children so much… it’s almost a secret passage back to a time they remember as a child. A time when ir484rhwnkk0 ejeh….
Whoa. This is getting deep. Best to end this now before I get any deeper and drown in my own imagination! LOL
You might also want to read:
- The real cost of having a baby with no Maternity Insurance, no Medicaid, and no help.
- Final Cost To Have A Baby Without Maternity Insurance And Now Health Insurance! The One-Two Punch!
- 30 weeks pregnant: A very expensive day indeed, but Little Tarzan has been paid for!
- Pregnancy week 19 brings many happenings from listing our house due to no maternity insurance to the mysterious gallbladder.
- The cost of having a baby has broken the $2,000 mark thanks to a surprise bill
I know it's been a while since this was an issue for you. Baby Monkey has long since emerged from Jane and all is well with your family. I just wanted to mention a few differences between the American System and the Australian system.
I love America, I far prefer it to Australia, and at some point I intend to move back.
But the Medicare system, and even the private medical system here beats the hell out of the US one :p
If you earn under a certain amount (and it's a pretty generous level of income) you aren't expected to pay for any neccessary medical proceedures. That includes blood tests, ultra-sounds, giving birth, emergency surgeries, and pretty well anything you can think of. Unneccesary surgeries can sometimes cost you a bit, but that's because they're unneccesary. And any expenses that you pay for, you take your bill to Medicare and they refund you a significant portion of that sum.
If you don't have private insurance and you wish to see a specialist like a fertility expert etc etc you have to pay yourself, but my visits cost me $135, and that's it. No matter what happens in that appointment, that's all it costs. You guys should have immigrated!
And taxes? We use a system called Pay as You Go, or PAYG. It means what it says, there's a scale of income vs tax required to come out of your paycheque. The scale looks at how much (on a basic level) someone of that projected yearly income would be expected to pay in taxes. And then they take out the neccesary % of money for that week before it even arrives in your bank. And, lukily for me, they usually overestimate the anount they need. Add that to any deductions you or your accountant is clever enough to finangle, and most Australians tend to be receiving money from the government around tax time, not owing.
Of course, it gets more complicated the more income you generate, and properties you own etc etc. But so does everyting in life really.
However, never tell any of my aussie friends that I've admitted that Australia has an edge over America in anything. They'll never let me live it down!
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