I just created a new page that you can see on the top of our blog called, Cost of Having a Baby. We decided to create this page to help give other soon-to-be parents, who are in our situation, an idea of how much it costs to have a baby – and what you can roughly expect to spend monthly.
As explained on the cost of having a baby page, we live in a large city, so the monthly costs for having a baby may be higher for us compared to someone who lives in a small town. So this will at least give you an idea of what’ll be coming as far as doctor bills, hospital bills, blood work, ultrasounds, and whatever else there is.
Jane is 16 weeks pregnant and a a full-term pregnancy is 36-40 weeks. So we have a good 21 to 25 weeks of pregnancy to go.
And as of this very moment, we’re under $100 away from breaking the $2,000 mark on out-of-pocket money spent thus far. However, if you take in consideration for the money I’ve spent on gas (Doctor is 40+ minutes away from us) then we’re over $2,000 mark on money spent so far.
We have another $250+ pending that may need to be paid for blood work that was done at the first pregnancy appointment. I’ll know what the deal is on that next week. I’m hoping it is a billing mistake on their end.
In two weeks, we have our ultrasound to check in on our baby, and find out if we’ll be having a boy or girl. That appointment isn’t at Jane’s Doctor’s office, it’s done at the hospital. That’s going to be about $900. OUCH. The cost of having a baby will soon be jumping by leaps and bounds here.
We’re paying Jane’s doctor $528 every time we go for an appointment. That money goes towards both the current appointment and Jane’s Doctor’s cost of delivering our baby.
The largest bills will obviously come from the hospital when our baby is born. Jane will be in the hospital for a couple of days (I guess 2 days is average?) and there will be bills from the hospital, blood work people, drug people, and other people. (I’m not sure of the proper name of all of the departments that the bills will be coming from, sorry.)
And as per a good recommendation from one of our pregnancy blog readers, I’ll be trying to wheel and deal with the hospital and any other places where we get bills from. Hopefully I can get them to take at least 50% of the bill if I paid right then and there.
Now I don’t have the cash for those bills now, but even if I did when the time comes, here’s my plan to…
Save Thousands (I hope!) On
The Cost Of Having A Baby
1. Let everywhere we get bills from (or talk to the billing department before hand) know that we’re self-employed, we cannot qualify for Medicaid, and there are no plans in place a for nice, sweet, responsible, hard-working, appreciative (soon-to-be or current) parents like us who had one too many jello shots on Halloween.
2. Tell them all I can do is give them 40% of the bill right now, or else I’m going to have to make small payments that could take years to get the entire bill paid.
3. Negotiate with them. Try to get 60% off the bill, if that doesn’t work, I’ll settle for 50% off.
4. Take one of those offers I keep getting from my bank where I can get a several thousand dollars interest free for 8-10 months or whatever it is. Use that money to pay off the hospital, doctor, blood people, drug, people, etc. to drive down the overall and monthly cost of having a baby.
5. I will do my best to pay off this little loan (which basically goes on my credit card, but is interest free – up to a certain point, which I need to find out how much I can get) as fast as I can. I hope to have this balance paid off before before the interest free period ends – or else they tack on all of the interest, sneaky little #&%’s.
6. If I do not have the balance paid in full, then I will use another one of those offers from another credit card I have where I can do a balance transfer and get 6 or 12 or whatever months interest free. I’ll then pay off the balance on the other credit card with this new “interest free loan” and do all I can to pay that off during the interest-free time period. If I’m unable to, then I’ll do it again so I can make sure that I never have to pay interest on this money spent to have our baby.
The above is my plan right now, but we of course have several months of pregnancy and several months of bills to go through. So the above plan may change a little, or it could change a lot. But at this very moment, I think it’s a pretty good plan to lower the overall cost of having a baby – which of course is a very, very good thing… especially in this economy.
One possible idea to negotiate with the hospital is letting them know that I have (or will soon have) living breathing proof that my boys can swim. Maybe I could stop by once a week and work off my debt by providing them a fine specimen of the fruit of my loins, since I obviously have nice, strong, healthy little swimmers. kidding.
If any of you have any ideas, tips, or suggestions that we can do now to lower our cost of having a baby, or ideas that we can keep in mind once the BIG hospital bills start pouring in, we’re all ears. Thank you! :)
You might also want to read:
- The real cost of having a baby without maternity insurance: Major news here! Spoke to the hospital today.
- 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!
- The cost of having a baby has broken the $2,000 mark thanks to a surprise bill
- Cost To Have A Baby: We Broke The $10,000.00 Mark. Plus, Is Pregnant Jane In Labor?
I had to giggle when someone suggested seeing a "bigger tax return" next year as a result of a pregnancy. We never get tax returns, as we're self-employed. Instead, we pay quarterly estimated tax. Deductions for a "new kid" don't even begin to make up for the expenses. (i.e. kids are not a good idea for a tax break) This last June 15th, we could only pay 1/2 of our estimated tax, because of prenatal cost expenses. The government doesn't care that we're having a baby. It just says, "Oh? You made X amount last year? Okay, pay 45% of your income every 3 months." It would almost be funny, if it weren't for the fact that my patients are on Medicaid, and none of them pay a dime for their health care, and some of them have 4-6 babies. Whee. :) If nationalized health care goes this route, heck, we might have 4-6 babies too. I have a feeling if health care is nationalized though, it will be a slow process, and self-employed people won't qualify because their income is too high (no matter than most of their income goes towards capital for their businesses).
So honestly, nationalized health care scares me, because we're already paying out the wazoo for taxes, and we probably still won't be covered until I'm already in menopause, the way they decide who gets priority.
I do hope things work out for you though.
Oh, and be careful with switching balances from credit card to credit card. I tried doing that last fall, to a no-interest account for six months, as you mentioned. They hit me with "transfer-of-balance fees." That's in the fine print they forget to tell you about.
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