warning: long post ahead! hubby had to work yesterday (yay for lots of kids at surf camp!) so my mom came with me to the anatomy scan. it was a seriously long appointment (over an hour and half!) but super informative. the tech came in and did a detailed ultrasound. she was lovely and she walked me through everything she was scanning (except for little babe's private areas... because we still don't want to know the sex). she left the room and the doctor took a look at the images and then came in to do another scan. (crazy lucky but it WASN'T dr. peanut butter this time - same practice, just a different guy! woohoo!) anyway, everything looked normal (phew!) in fact, here's a pic of little babe's profile: we think he or she is just perfect :o) but, the doctor wanted us to be aware of all of our options. since the NT scan showed some high abnormalities (even though the blood test came back and said otherwise), the doc said that we could, if we wanted to, have an amniocentesis. an amnio is a huge needle that goes through mom's belly and into the amniotic sac to withdraw fluid for genetic and chromosomal testing. it would either confirm or dispel, to a 100% certainty, whether or not little babe has down syndrome. it would be important to get this done asap as the limit for a voluntary termination of pregnancy in the state of new jersey is 24 weeks. (this is a no judgment zone, please and thank you. to each her own!) the other thing to consider with an amnio is that doing so carries a (slight) risk of miscarriage. taking all of this into consideration, we decided NOT to go through with additional diagnostic testing. even though one (fairly subjective) screen indicates a (possible) problem, the other did not (with 99% certainty). we've decided it's not worth the risk to uncover that remaining 1%. this decision did not come easy, and we were forced to have many a difficult discussion about it in a fairly short amount of time. so to anyone out there who faces a similar situation, i just want you to know that whatever decision you make is best for YOU, and that's ok!
after my appointment, i decided it was probably a good time to initiate a disability claim for maternity leave. oh boy did i step into a world of shit. while i was undergoing fertility treatments (shots of folistem and daily blood tests), i found out that my school (i'm new to this district) did not have a disability policy. i decided to research a private policy on my own and found one who works in conjunction with the nea (national education association). right after my iui procedure, but before a pregnancy had been confirmed, i took out a disability policy. all good right? wrong. so it turns out that my policy actually didn't kick in until 4/1. my pregnancy was confirmed via blood test on 3/27. that's right - 4 days too soon. ak! total bummer. i called a claims adjuster (and an attorney - hey, ya never know?!) to see if there as anything that could be done but (a) this was a case of MY BAD. i should've read the goddamn policy more closely and waited 5 days before going to the doctor! and (b) turns out there's an exclusion in the policy about fertility treatments, anyway. i would've had to have had the policy in place PRIOR to seeking treatment. again, MY BAD. so ladies, please learn from my (expensive) mistake! if you are even considering going to a reproductive endocrinologist, take out a disability policy before stepping foot in the door! this means that my maternity leave will be unpaid (ah! [insert audible weeping]) but, hubby and i are both teachers. we are totally used to budgeting ourselves (we do it every summer sans pay), so things will be tight, but we will just figure it out. under normal circumstances, i would have a complete panic attack about this and stress out about it for weeks on end, but if i may, i'm going to quote a very good friend of mine here, who says that the BEST way to manage a stressful pregnancy is to remain "zen as fuck." so here i am, channeling my inner fucking zen ;-) namaste, bitches!
1 Comment
Shana s
8/2/2017 05:57:58 pm
You will still be accessing nj short term disability and family leave right?
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Authorjust a girl growing into womanhood growing into motherhood. Archives
January 2018
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