One of the complications of our unplanned pregnanacy was our pending trip to disney in early September. I won the trip through a contest at work, and didn't take it until labor day weekend. Sarah had done research and discovered that is actually a slow time for them. That's the exact time to go! With a due date of October 12th, the trip was planned for about 5 weeks before his pending arrival.
The other complication was insurance. We specifically choose our insurance, it is not an employee benefit. Because we were done having children, we didn't choose any coverage for pregnancy. This was an early concern. After researching options, we discovered our best bet with insurance would increase our monthly premium by over $800. This seemed a bit excessive, and we kept our options open.
I have a sister in law who is a practicing midwife in Idaho, and the thought occurred to Sarah and I to go with a home birth and use a midwife. After all, every one of our four children was naturally delivered, and this would be no exception. Home births are much much less expensive to top it all off. We contacted Staci about the same time as I had told my brother Matt, and were considering hiring her to come here and manage the birth. Due to travel, cost, and prenatal information requirements, we were encouraged to hire someone locally. Staci still wanted to come, and so Matt and Staci planned to be here a few weeks before the birth, and to stay and help afterwards as well.
So, the search began. Sarah did the searching, I kept on asking. We contacted a midwife in Battle Creek who is well known in the area, but wouldn't drive to Lawton. There was another option that was much closer, but we didn't like the new age, "hippie" style of that one. When we thought all was lost, and perhaps no one would service the Lawton area, God solved it for us. He pointed us to a midwife from Sturgis, about an hour south of here that would drive to our home for all of the prenatal appointments, and would deliver in our home. She had an assistant who lived in Vicksburg who could get to Lawton in a hurry if she had to. So, we hired them.
$2,500 paid in monthly payments over the prenatal period was a lot cheaper than $800 per month with copays and deductibles.
I met with Sarah and the midwives at the first appointment, came to the agreement mentioned above, and went back outside rototilling the garden in a way that would make my Grandpa Taplin proud.
Appointments hummed along ok, God was providing funds to pay for the delivery through my work, and we were looking forward to a home birth- something we never thought we would do.
Because we were footing the bill for whatever we chose, we opted for an ultrasound down in Fort Wayne that we could pay "over the counter" for. This ultra sound gave us gender. On June 16th, God told us He had given us a son. I think the whole family knew it anyway.
As we came closer to the Florida trip, the midwife gave us her ok to go, and so all seven of us went to Florida the weekend of Labor day. We left August 31st, and returned September 3rd. We had a wonderful time. We ran from the last ride at Animal Kingdom to the bus, and from there we got on a plane- back to Detroit.
Only 5 weeks to go.
Psalm 5:12: "For you bless the righteous, O LORD; you cover him with favor as with a shield."
Psalm 29:11: "May the LORD give strength to his people! May the LORD bless his people with peace!"
O great God, you had a son,
And have given us more than one.
We love this child, the baby so small
We'll learn to trust you after all.
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