Where does the time go?

It’s amazing how little free time you have when you are caring for a newborn. Believe me, I’m not even doing that much (just ask Tiffany) and the day’s seem to fly by. Here are some recent pics of our girl. The one in the glider is at the one month mark. We’ll take a picture every month in that chair to compare so that should be interesting to watch her growth from month to month.

Looking back at some of the older pictures, it’s amazing how much she has changed since she was born. It’s also amazing how many diapers you go through. I think someone needs to come up with a Mr. Fusion that can run on dirty diapers. The amount of dirty diapers in landfills all over the country has to be astronomical. I think a lot about an old co-worker of mine that had triplets a few years back. They must have been buying diapers by the case weekly. 

Natalie continues to sleep through the night, but could probably do a better job of napping during the day. She can get cranky by the time bedtime rolls around which is when I get to spend the most time with her, lucky me. We’re now over 5 weeks after birth and bills are still arriving from the hospital, just got one today . I’m hoping they stop by the time Natalie gets off to college, but just in case I did start her 529 plan a couple weeks back so she’s all set for the JUCO of her choice....

I was working on our taxes yesterday and got the pleasant surprise of finding out that none of our medical bills were tax deductible. I guess they have to equate to more than 10% of your income to make them deductible.  That was sort of depressing, but I’m sure the people that make a million a year and have $90,000 in medical bills aren’t too happy either. On the bright side the jerk who lies about his income and claims he makes 30k a year when in fact he makes 70k gets to deduct pretty much everything and pay no taxes.The dirty little secret of the tax system is that people making less money are more apt to cheat on their taxes because they are less likely to get audited which  is why 50% of the population pays ALL of the taxes and why 10% of the population pays 85% of all the taxes. I know this because i deal with a lot of these people on a daily basis and when we ask to see a tax return it shows they made 20k last year, but their driving a new SUV they paid cash for. That’s okay  though we contributed tens of thousands of dollars to these folks retirement and entitlement accounts this year. So don’t worry about the guy or gal who isn’t claiming their entire income, they’re all set.

Hope you like the new pics!

Quite the Racket

Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride....

So topics have been scarce recently. We’re kind of in a holding pattern until our doctor’s appointment next Friday when we should find out the sex of the baby...But then I walked to the mailbox today.

Tiffany is out of town for work until Thursday so I went ahead and opened an envelope from her doctor’s office. It was handwritten on the front so I wanted to see if it was something timely that I might need to address before she comes home.

Turns out it was timely and very informative. Please allow me to explain. I’ve gotten into this habit for pretty much my entire life of paying for services and goods after receiving those services and goods. Crazy!...I know. But as they say, you learn something new every day. Did you know you pay for the delivery of your child before the child is even born? Apparently, we owe in full by mid-August the cost of our physician’s services for the entire pregnancy and delivery. 

I’m going to try to stay away from exact dollar figures on this blog for the most part, but for those that have not experienced this, I’m going to share these figures so you can use them as a rough estimate. For the services of our physician, the bill is over $2,100. Now with our insurance, which covers 90%, the bill comes to $480 and change but that balance is due by 8/18. They say it can be paid in two monthly installments with the first due no later than 7/30...Call me crazy, but I don’t call it two “monthly” payments if the payments are due within 3 weeks of each other. ,

Anyway, this is just for the doctor, as they say in the fine print at the bottom of the bill. Hospital costs (can’t wait to see those) and any other costs, including the lab is EXTRA. Oh, and this is just for a run of the mill delivery. If Tiffany needs a C-Section, that’s an upgrade my friends, not included in this cost. But the best part is that if we would like to have our baby boy circumcised, that’s an extra $238  which is due ASAP. WE DON”T EVEN KNOW WHAT WE ARE HAVING YET....I used all caps there for emphasis in case you couldn’t tell.

So this is basically a deposit for what the minimum cost will be. Now while we don’t have a problem handling a sudden bill like this, I have to believe some people might. Also, I might be taking a huge leap here, but I meat A LOT of people now that have three, four, five kids and let’s just say they don’t have a lot of cash on hand. Who’s paying for these kid’s deliveries? I think I know someone who contributes and I saw him in the mirror this morning.

Don’t even get me started on the fact the doctor who we’ve seen for a total of 10 minutes so far gets paid over $2,100. I realize they have to kick some back to the office and staff, but still. Obviously we have insurance so it’s not a budget breaker, but it’s pretty hard to beat our insurance so a vast majority of the population must have some difficulty when it comes to paying bills like this that are unexpected.

I guess the alternative would be just to not have pre-natal visits,  not have insurance, go to the emergency room for delivery and then it would be free. Well, not really, it gets rolled into the cost for those that can pay. Good system, can’t wait to see all those savings from healthcare reform! (Note: Sarcasm)