For all my joking last week about chewing up my birth control pills, Mike and I DO want another kid. Ideally that would be sometime next year. Being October already, I started looking into making appointments with my medical “team” to make sure everything is up to snuff with the ole’ baby maker.

I have different health insurance since Annabel was born, so I went on my provider’s website to confirm all my doctors were covered. And they are, so yay! I mentioned that to Mike, and he said, “Wait…so Dr. Risky is covered for pre-appointments, but not once you’re pregnant?”

UGH. I had forgotten that I didn’t have maternity coverage.

I called up my insurance provider to find out how to add maternity. After being transferred LITERALLY seven times, I was finally told that the state of California doesn’t require insurance providers to offer maternity coverage…so they don’t.

From a business standpoint, I totally get it. A limited number of the population needs it, and it’s costly and blah blah blah. If I was an insurance company I wouldn’t want to provide maternity if I didn’t have to. It’s just such a bummer that our insurance doesn’t offer it to begin with – I’ve never had health insurance that didn’t include a maternity option.

We’re not sure what our next move should be. Other than switching to a job with a better insurance plan (which isn’t exactly easy these days, either), we don’t really know what our options are. Paying out-of-pocket for a pregnancy would be…expensive. Is another child worth all the money it would cost to bring him or her here? Yes, and no. Yes, for obvious reasons. No because we’re not going to go into debt to the detriment of Annabel.

A lot of people say they aren’t getting pregnant because they can’t afford a baby. We can afford the baby, but without insurance we can’t afford the pregnancy. I’m googling and calling and emailing and trying to leave no stone unturned, but I’m kind of off my game. I was mentally prepared for the long road of pregnancy, but I wasn’t prepared for this detour. Le sigh.