Yesterday Annie had her two year well-baby (well-toddler?) visit with Dr. Looove. We’ve been preparing Annie for the last week for her visit by talking about the super awesome fun princess doctor who was going to tickle her and give her a princess shot! YAY. Annie was super-into it. She even practiced being the doctor.

It had been a while since Dr. Looove had seen Annie, and she couldn’t get over all her curls. I was like, “You should try detangling them, you’ll get over ‘em real fast.” Annie did the typical little kid thing and clammed-up when Dr. Looove was in the room. No saying her name or counting or any of that. I should have shown Dr. Looove some videos. Anyway, everything checked out great, and all the measurements I took a few weeks ago were accurate. I think that basically makes me a doctor.

And then. Dr. Looove started talking about the vaccination Annie was due to have, and she looked down at Annie’s chart and said, “Uh oh. You have Blue Shield insurance?”

I haven’t said anything on here because I didn’t want to start BABY WATCH 2012!!! but I found a new insurer in Blue Shield – and they offer maternity. They accepted me and we started on the new plan December 15. And it turns out, on January 1st, Blue Shield and UCLA Medical Group parted ways. They have yet to come to an agreement on a new contract which means…it was basically like having NO insurance at Dr. Looove’s office. Do you know how much a vaccination and well-baby visit costs? I do, I do! Almost seven hundred dollars – THAT IS THE CASH DISCOUNT.

So that kind of put a damper on things.

Dr. Looove seems to think that UCLA and Blue Shield will work this contract malarkey out. Blue Shield let contracts with UCLA expire in 2006 for two months and in 2008 for four months. I really hope they come to an agreement soon, because literally all of my doctors are through UCLA. OB/GYN/Perinatology, Hematology, General Practitioner, Psychiatrist, Therapists, need I go on? The thought of finding new doctors and then filling them in on all of my medical and emotional history is exhausting. Do not want.

The timing is super hilarious. If I’d known UCLA and Blue Shield were going to part ways fifteen days after I became a new customer, I would have stayed on my former, less-expensive insurance plan. Dear Lords and Ladies of UCLA and Blue Shield: Please fix this. Kthanx.

© COPYRIGHT HEATHER SPOHR 2012 All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

Do you have something in your house where you look at it and you just KNOW that it will injure you? That it’s only a matter of time. In our house, it’s the baby gate. Mike is six feet three inches tall, and steps over the gate like it’s a no higher than a curb. I am a full foot shorter, and the baby gate has been plotting against me ever since Madeline started crawling.

Annabel figured out if she throws her body weight against the gate she can knock it over (seriously, it’s like a scene out of Jurassic Park – she’s looking for a weakness!). So, we had to secure the gate in creative ways, using foot stools and other miscellaneous heavy furniture. It’s a hassle to move the furniture, so it’s easier to step over the gate than open it. (I have no pictures, you’ll have to take my word.)

Last Friday, I was carrying Annabel back to the gated community (so much more pleasant than “baby jail”) and went to step over the fence. I didn’t step quite high enough. My right foot (specifically, my toes) got caught in the gate. My momentum kept carrying me forward, and suddenly, Annie and I were falling. The next part is a blur, as my mom instincts kicked in. I twisted and contorted my body and somehow landed on the floor with Annie laughing, completely fine. It was all a big ride for her!

Unfortunately, my ankle and shin IMMEDIATELY looked BAD. Like send-Mike-text-messages-to-come-home-from-work-bad. The whole lower front half of my leg was dark red/purple within five minutes of the fall.

You know when a bad time to go to the emergency room at a university hospital is? The Friday before Halloween. I saw all kinds of drunk injuries – AT EIGHT PM. A fraternity boy wearing a Chile flag who’d had a BEER BOTTLE BROKEN ACROSS HIS FACE. I stared at him with my mouth hanging open. All I could think was that his mom was going to be sooooo pissed.

After an exam and xray, I was finally released from the ER around 11:30ish with the diagnosis of slight ankle sprain and deep bone bruising.

Wanna see the bruises and swelling? I took these yesterday with my camera phone (so excuse the quality).

cankle!

The shin and ankle already look SO much better.

Not to be outdone, my dad decided he wanted to go to the ER the next night, and dropped a TV on the middle finger of his right hand. He needed seven stitches (gag) AND he broke a bone.

but damn if he isn’t festive with his pumpkin backdrop!

Don’t worry – the TV still works. Phew.

THEN. That same night, my cousin Leah though it would be awesome to grab a knife by the wrong end, and slashed her middle finger on her LEFT hand. She did NOT go to the ER because she knows stitches are disgusting. But the joke’s on her because her cut got infected and now she’s on antibiotics.

at least her nail polish is sparkly

I hope the rest of 2010 is medically boring! DO YOU HEAR ME MIKE THAT’S NOT A CHALLENGE!

© COPYRIGHT HEATHER SPOHR 2012 All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

The health insurance we’ve been purchasing through COBRA ran out at the end of May (you only get 18 months on COBRA). That means Mike and I spent the last six weeks researching our options. Since we are both independent contractors, that meant we had to purchase a private plan.

We applied for a plan with Blue Cross/Blue Shield (who we were with previously). Because we had exhausted our COBRA options, we qualified for something called Guaranteed Issue. Very simply, that means that if we couldn’t be underwritten for a regular plan because of pre-existing conditions, they still had to offer us coverage. I filled out our family application online while I was on the phone with an agent. We discussed that my pre-existing conditions are all pregnancy-related, and decided it would be best to waive maternity coverage.

The decision came back a few days later. I had been denied underwritten coverage because of c-section rehab, postpartum depression, and gestational diabetes. Mike had been denied because of his hospitalization last year. We weren’t worried, though, because we still had the guaranteed issue option…at least, we weren’t worried until we saw what that plan entailed:

$1,266 monthly premium
$4,000 deductible per person or $8,000 maximum family deductible

I had to bust out my calculator, but I figured out we could potentially spend $23,192 out of pocket in the next 12 months. I don’t expect my health insurance to be cheap, but I don’t expect it to be out of reach, either. I believe that you get what you pay for, but for $23,192 I’d think we’d have the best insurance in the world.

It turns out that they have to insure you, but they can charge whatever they want. When I called to be like WTFBBQ you denied me for all pregnancy-related conditions even though I waived maternity coverage, I was told it didn’t matter – I showed a “pattern of health problems.”

The new health care reforms don’t kick in until January 2014. There is a “temporary high risk” pool for people like us, but unfortunately (at least as far as Mike and I understand it), you have to have been uninsured for six months to be considered – meaning, this isn’t even available to us for half a year.

It looks like we have two options: either go into debt to have insurance for all of us, or just insure Annie. We are leaning toward just insuring Annie, but that terrifies me. The last three years have shown us how important insurance is. Our health can turn in an instant.

We’re extremely frustrated. This is another example of just how broken the health care system is and how many people get left out in the cold. Hopefully, by 2014 this won’t be the case anymore. I’m worried though. There is still opposition to reform…could it be derailed by 2014? Also, as this “temporary high risk” pool exhibits, the reforms still aren’t perfect. People (like us) are slipping through the cracks.

I spent hours on the phone today exploring other options (and don’t even get me started on how Blue Cross took money from our bank account three days early). We’re afraid to make the wrong decision. I am so stressed out about this. GAH. And the fact that we are still better off than many only makes the entire situation more despicable.

© COPYRIGHT HEATHER SPOHR 2012 All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

Thanks to everyone for their advice about jaundice. Madeline also was jaundiced, but since she was already in the NICU it was just one aspect to her treatment. We very much wanted to avoid any sort of hospital stay (we just do not need to deal with that kind of emotional trauma), not to mention any possible side effects the jaundice could inflict on little Annabel. She was already very lethargic, and that is why we opted to follow our medical team’s advice and give her formula for 24 hours. Mike and I absolutely researched both sides of it, believe me – we don’t make any decisions lightly when it comes to our children. The good news is that Annie’s bilirubin numbers dropped to 12.1 and she is officially back to breast feeding like a champ. And, now I have a nice little stash of milk frozen for any sort of emergency. Win!

I’m definitely happy that Annie’s bilirubin levels went down because her yellow skin tone was starting to make her act a little strange. Earlier today, for example, Mike turned the TV to an episode of MTV’s “Jersey Shore,” and Annie immediately locked her gaze on the screen. Mike and I joked that it must have been because she felt a connection to all the orange-skinned, overly tan guidos and guidettes on screen, then left the episode on as we went about our day. This was a mistake. Check out how I found her only a couple hours later:

I immediately took the weights away from Annie, I mean those things could really hurt a newborn! But she wasn’t done acting out. Not ten minutes later Mike found her like this:

Okay, so Annie’s tanning in indirect sunlight was actually a good thing considering her bilirubin levels, but where the heck did she get those sunglasses? Mike took the glasses away and told her she was too young for them (they were totally for 3-6 month olds (but of course they fit her giant Spohr Head)) and that she shouldn’t try to grow up so fast. Annie seemed to get what Mike was saying, but then, five minutes later, we found her like this:

What baby does their own laundry? Mike and I weren’t sure why Annie was acting so strange until it hit us… GTL! Gym, tan, laundry! Annie was only doing what ‘The Situation” taught her to do on “Jersey Shore!” Wow. I guess kids really shouldn’t watch TV. And those Jersey Shore people? Totally not role models. Thankfully, once we learned from Dr. Looove that Annie’s bilirubin number went down, Annie was less interested in imitating Snooki and the gang. Still, it’s cartoons only from here on out…although, I wouldn’t mind if she kept doing her own laundry.

© COPYRIGHT HEATHER SPOHR 2012 All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

Remember when you were a kid and, after kicking butt while playing “Ms. Pacman,” an intermission sequence came on the screen where a stork dropped a baby Pacman into the arms of Pacman and Mrs. Pacman? Well, Annabel is looking like Baby Pacman right now. As I mentioned yesterday, she was looking a bit jaundiced on Monday, so  we had some blood work done to test the level of bilirubin in her system. Getting the blood work done was less than fun as we had to take her to the hospital to do it, and that is not exactly the best place to have a ten-day-old what with all of the coughing and sneezing and measles and typhoid everywhere. I was hoping to get in and out, but of course our number was “5,” and they were at “76,” meaning they had to go all the way up to a hundred AND THEN start back at one. A good forty-five minutes passed and they were barely in the nineties. I was not happy, especially since randoms were stopping to comment on my having Annie there. My favorite comment: “Man, you sure are brave to bring an itty bitty baby like that up in here.” You know, because we were there socially. I didn’t want to do it, but eventually I went to the counter and did some complaining on account of my having waited with my newborn for nearly an hour and what not. We finally got back there and a nurse took blood from Annie’s heel. She took it like a champ and barely even flinched.

A couple hours later we got a call from Dr. Looove’s office. The results came back at 13.9 mg, which isn’t great. (18 mg or above usually leads to being admitted to the hospital so the baby can be treated under the lights.) Dr. Looove suggested we have another blood test the next day (Tuesday), and if that test resulted in a lower number, that meant the jaundice had peaked and Annie should be fine. Unfortunately – after another heinously long wait at the hospital – Annie’s number came back at 15.1 mg which is a bit worrisome. Dr. Looove’s diagnosis is Annie is suffering from Breast Milk Jaundice, where the mother’s milk “produces an enzyme that interferes temporarily with the normal bilirubin elimination pathways of the liver.” (Thank you, Dr. Google!) The awesome part of this is that this only happens to less than 2% of all babies (sarcasm). The plan now is to suspend breast feeding for 24 hours, and then test her again. In most cases, babies with Breast Milk Jaundice will have their bilirubin numbers back down to normal levels after 24 hours without the breast milk. Interestingly, they then can resume breast feeding without the jaundice reoccurring. Here’s hoping this works…neither Annie or I want to make a habit of getting her cute little heel jabbed at with a needle.

Not to mention I loathe pumping.

In light of Annie’s Baby Pacman impersonation, I thought it might be as good a time as any to try out taking some black and white photos. She is so yummy, like a yellow M&M.

© COPYRIGHT HEATHER SPOHR 2012 All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

Two years ago today was one of the greatest days ever. After 68 days of fear, longing, and worry, our little girl finally left the NICU and came home.

the first time I ever walked around holding my daughter

Maddie on the loose!

in the sun for the first time

our family

When you’re in the NICU for as long as we were, you learn that discharge days are arbitrary. We saw plenty of parents get disappointed and frustrated as their child’s discharge date would get delayed for one reason or another. We were told Madeline would come home that week, but we didn’t let our hopes get TOO high. But that morning, our phone rang, and it was the head of the NICU. “Hi Mr. and Mrs. Spohr! Your daughter is ready to come home!”

Magical, wonderful words.

Mike and I raced to the NICU, car seat installed and ready to be occupied. We practically ran into the NICU and I gleefully removed the last sensors that were stuck to her skin. I dressed her in the going home outfit we’d chosen, and then I picked her up and walked around with her – the first time I’d ever been able to do that. She’d always been tethered to a monitor, or a medicine drip, or a an oxygen tube. But she was finally unencumbered. Mike and I walked her through the NICU for a goodbye – her victory tour – and everyone remarked how big she was. She weighed six pounds two ounces, double her birth weight. We thanked and hugged all the people who saved Madeline’s life, and then we left. I remember feeling like we should run, like the doctors and nurses were going to tell us that a mistake had been made and she wasn’t REALLY allowed to leave.

Mike drove so slow on the way home I still can’t believe we made it back before the sun went down.

Those first few days with her home were amazing and scary and fantastic. We stared at her. We couldn’t believe we got to be with her all the time, that we didn’t have to drive to visit her anymore.

Even Rigby stared at her:

the beginning of a (beautiful) relationship

We were so grateful to have our family together.

It was the best of times.

© COPYRIGHT HEATHER SPOHR 2012 All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

Ever since my 30th week of pregnancy (when my body decided to go crazy and send me to Labor and Delivery three times in a week), I’ve been thinking about my hospital bag. When I was pregnant with Madeline, my hospital bag was packed differently. I knew I’d be in the hospital for a long stay, and that I most likely wouldn’t be leaving the hospital at the same time as my baby. This time I am hopefully only going to be in the hospital for a few days, and Binky will be coming home with me. I realized I had no idea what to pack.

I turned to twitter for advice and got TONS of ideas. I realized that a lot of what I brought when I was on hospital bed rest would still apply. One key difference this time is that I’ll be able to wear my own clothes (if I want) instead of hospital gowns. I can’t stress how awesome this is. I get weekly updates about my pregnancy from TheBump.com, so I skipped ahead a few weeks (ironically to week 35, where I am now) to see what they suggested for a hospital bag. Their list is great – they list by essentials, the stuff you don’t HAVE to have but might want, and the stuff to leave at home. It helped me whittle down a lot of my list.

So this is the final-ish list of what’s in my hospital bag:

Um. So. Yeah. What does Mike need? I don’t have any idea if he needs anything special. When I was on hospital bed rest, Mike came and went as necessary. This time he’ll stay with me and Binky the entire time, so I want to be sure to have everything he might need.

As is my way, I’m now wondering what else I’ve forgotten. I had a phone list packed, but then we signed up for this awesome service that will call all our friends and family for us. Instead of a notebook and pen and a separate DVD player, I’m bringing a laptop that functions as all those things.

What am I forgetting? Help a mama out!

Also, today is the 11th, which means 11% of all sales made today at Kinga’s Kreations will be donated to Friends of Maddie!

© COPYRIGHT HEATHER SPOHR 2012 All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

Last week’s Binky checkup was so uneventful I didn’t even mention it. I was literally in and out in under 30 minutes, it might be a new record. Mike and I were expecting more of the same for yesterday’s appointment. Except, Binky was having an off-day. Binky, like her big sister Madeline before her, has days where she is really active, and days where she sleeps all day. I’ve mentioned this every time I’ve had an appointment, but I guess every other appointment was an active day. So when I mentioned that Binky hadn’t moved much, the nurses reacted.

I honestly hadn’t been worried until the nurses seemed concerned. The nurse practitioner found Binky’s heart rate with the doppler, which immediately set my mind at ease. But the NP said that wasn’t enough, and she went off to report to Dr. Risky. A few minutes later a different nurse came in to say Dr. Risky wanted to perform an ultrasound. So off we went to the ultrasound room, where Dr. Risky spent the next ten minutes watching Binky. We could see that she was moving, although not big vigorous movements I could feel. I never have a great angle from the exam table, but it was pretty cool to see her floating around, a hand drifting up every now and then. We even got a good shot of her face. She looked like a little Frankenstein!

Cheat Sheet:

The gentle movements weren’t enough for Dr. Risky, so off to Labor and Delivery I went for monitoring.

In the meantime, Rigby had her follow-up vet appointment, so Mike left me to take her to get checked out. A quick exam lead the vet to conclude Rigby needed an ultrasound. Rigby and I both got pictures of our insides! After the ultrasound, the vet decided that her bladder wasn’t full enough, and told Mike that it would take three hours for it to fill to their liking. He told Mike to come back, but not before mentioning Rigby definitely had SOMETHING in her bladder, and it looked like kidney stones.

So there I am attached to monitors on the Labor and Delivery floor of the hospital, and I get a text that my dog might have kidney stones. It was then I realized sometimes my life is like an episode of Friends.

I was hooked to the machines for about 45 minutes. I couldn’t really relax because the nurses had me shifting into different positions to make sure Binky stayed on the monitors. It was cool to hear her heart pumping away, although it reminded me of the nights I was on hospital bed rest with Madeline. At one point, one of the nurses came over and told me they had enough and I could go. I asked how the baby looked, and they said everything looked fine. It was such a relief.

Mike arrived back at the hospital when I was done, so we had a quick tour of the maternity floor from my old college friend Staci, who is an L&D nurse. I’d been to some parts of the unit but Mike hadn’t been there at all, so it was nice to get acquainted. Then it was back to the vet’s office to check on Rigby.

I haven’t been to the vet’s office in a while. That task always fell to Mike. So I’d forgotten how sad the vet’s office is. All the animals are whimpering and the whole place smells like fear. I had to do some mouth breathing. The assistant brought Rigby out to us and I’m pretty sure she’s NEVER been so happy to see us. My face is raw from all the licking. We spoke to the vet, who said that Rigby’s bladder is FULL of crystals and possibly stones. While she was at the vet, she passed three crystals. The vet showed them to us – they were the size of rice grains. I wanted to cry just looking at them! Poor Rigby. We have to continue to treat her for the next two weeks with antibiotics, an anti-inflammatory, and special food. If those three things don’t improve the situation, Santa will be bringing the Spohr family Doggie Bladder Surgery for Christmas! Just what I always wanted.

Rigby’s anti-inflammatory is a pill. I have a hard enough time getting Mike to swallow pills, so I knew Rigby would be a challenge. Sure enough, she spit the pill out about five times before we finally found the one thing that tricked Rigby into swallowing her pill – a dollop of jam.

My dog really IS Joey Tribbiani.

How YOU doin’

© COPYRIGHT HEATHER SPOHR 2012 All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

13 weeks 1 day

17 weeks 2 days

24 weeks 3 days

Binky is moving along well, and it is such a comfort and relief. Things have been a little bit rougher for me but nothing awful. My sudden crazy upper back and neck pain has been super annoying but it all checks out OK and it’s nothing I can’t handle. My blood pressure has been kind of wild. High one day (132/83 is significantly above my baseline BP), and then extremely low the next day (83/40 is low for ANYONE). It makes taking my blood pressure every day feel like my own weigh-in scene on The Biggest Loser – I never know what the number is going to be.

I actually ended up calling Labor and Delivery over the weekend when my pressure stayed persistently low and I spoke with the on-call doctor. There was talk of me going int0 L&D for monitoring, but it was decided I’d stay home with clear instructions on when to come in and luckily I never got to that point. Two years ago I was admitted to the hospital with Madeline still in my belly. Walking into Labor and Delivery two years later (to the day) would have seriously tripped my brain.

I spend most of my days taking it easy. Dr. Risky wants me to be careful, but I’m not on bed rest so I can still go out, as long as I don’t over exert myself. Mike has been WONDERFUL picking up my slack, but sometimes I gotta get out of the house and grocery shop with him.

What, like Mike is going to let me walk through the store? I can’t get away with anything around here.

© COPYRIGHT HEATHER SPOHR 2012 All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

Yesterday, my mom, Meghan, and I were at UCLA for a meeting. Meghan had never been there, and my mom hadn’t spent much time in the new hospital. When Madeline was in the NICU (and later briefly on the pediatric floor), she was at the old hospital across the street. Last summer the hospital staff moved into their new, cushy digs, leaving behind their dilapidated facility and heaps of memories.

We walked through the medical plaza before we went into the hospital, and I pointed things out to them. The lab where I fainted, the hematology clinic, Dr. Blood’s office, where we saw Matthew Perry, Dr. Risky’s office, the cafeteria where the hot doctors eat, where the crowds gathered after Michael Jackson died. You know, the landmarks. It seemed like I’d really come to know the place since my weekly obstetric appointments had started.

Except, we’ve been keeping appointments in the medical plaza for over a year. Appointments for Madeline. The building houses Dr. Lung and the NICU follow-up clinic. It has the x-ray machine that took many images of Maddie’s lungs. It’s where we were told she was doing so well, developmentally right on target, sloooowly catching up in size.

In fact, we were there a year ago yesterday. I didn’t know that when we were there, but while I walked through the corridors of the medical plaza with my mom and friend I was hit with a lot of memories. I remembered when Maddie was smaller and Mike and I would push her in her stroller to her appointments. As she got bigger, I’d carry her on my hip and she’d make friends with everyone we passed. I remembered standing in the elevator lobby while four nurses went wild over Maddie, and she waved and said hi to all of them. I remembered the pride I felt that my daughter was so happy and charming despite her rough start in life. I remember sitting in the waiting room surrounded by “sick kids,” and longing for the day that Maddie wouldn’t need monthly check-ups. Now I’d do anything to be sitting in the waiting room with her again.

Mike usually drops me off in front of the medical plaza before my OB appointments. I go check in, and he parks the car. The first time I walked in alone, I automatically hit the elevator button for the second floor. The pediatrics doctors are on the second floor. I didn’t realize my mistake until I rounded the corner and saw the big fish tank in the waiting room. The kids’ fish tank. Maddie LOVED looking at those fish. I burst into tears.

Later today, I will take that elevator to the fourth floor, and see detailed images of my second child. I will leave my sadness on the lower floors. On the fourth floor, only cautious excitement is allowed.

© COPYRIGHT HEATHER SPOHR 2012 All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.