Baby and Other Blessings

30 weeks yesterday!  Cah-raaazy!

I need to remember to post my 28 and 30 week pictures.  I’ll get to it this weekend, I promise.  I WILL become a more consistent blogger.  I will! 

In the meantime I have truly been amazed with how many blessings Husband and I are receiving right now.  The most obvious one being that we are having a healthy baby – and a healthy mommy to boot.  I don’t know if I’m missing asking important questions to my OB or if I really am having an awesome pregnancy.  We finally got the heartburn under control.  Omeprazole is now my best friend!

I am at the University Hospital quite a bit for work and I see SO many pregnant women hobble down the hall towards the OB clinic – and they look MISERABLE!  I can’t help but think, “oh please don’t let that be me when I get closer to delivering”.  For the most part I feel good.  But I’m sure that will fade the closer I get to our Little Lady coming.

The other blessings I have been amazed at receiving have mostly been financial blessings.  Here are a few examples: 

1)   We have been a customer of a business for a couple of years now and we are almost done paying off what we owe them.  However, during a conversation with them a little bit ago about our last payment being in October, the representative mentioned that they found we owe $850 in fees that haven’t been paid over the last two years.  I was heartbroken.  That is money we need for the baby.  But, if we owe it, we owe it.  About a month later I was talking to the representative about a couple of other things about the account and I asked him about the fees, where they came from and I told him that I thought we had been paying the fees the entire time.  He said he’d check into it.  Well, not 15 minutes later he called me back and let me know that they re-calculated everything and I HAD been paying the fees the entire time so I wouldn't owe the $850 any longer!  I told him I loved him.  Ha ha.  I could tell he was genuinely happy to be the bearer of such great news and he told me to go buy a crib with the money we are saving.  I will thank you…and several other things with that amount of money.  

2) Husband received a bill in the mail from his doctor’s office for $275.  What this bill was for, no one knew.  I figured it was whatever the insurance didn’t pay.  I paid part of it, as I couldn’t afford the entire amount at once, and planned to pay it in full with monthly payments.  One day I happened to be looking at what our insurance covers (am getting prepared for baby) and I noticed that the type of doctor Husband had seen was COMPLETELY covered.  Hmm.  I walked upstairs (as this doc’s office happens to be in my office building) and asked what the fee was for.  It happened to be a “no show” fee, which the insurance obviously doesn’t pay for.  Dang.  Well, I did a little digging about the date of the no show and talked to the billing department.  And come to find out, Husband HAD attended the appointment.  He was just 15 minutes late and someone marked him as not having shown up which is why we were charged.  The manager reversed the charge that day, so we no longer had to pay the $275.  Oh, and about a month after this was resolved, we got a check in the mail for the money I’d paid toward it, that was a nice blessing. 

3)  I received a check in the mail from Merril Lynch randomly one day.  Come to find out, while I was working at Macy’s, some of my paycheck was being added to a 401K for me and as it wasn’t a lot and I was no longer employed at Macy’s, they cut me a check for my portion and sent it my way.  Random money is very nice when preparing for a baby.

4) And now…for the BIG blessing of late.

I don’t know if you are aware, but Utah does not have good maternity pay laws.  You’d think they would as they are the baby making capital of the world, but they simply don’t.  And because they don’t, Utah companies can make up their own maternity policies. 

Here’s the scoop.  If a company doesn’t have “maternity pay” they will allow you to be out with your baby for 12 weeks if you qualify for FMLA (have worked at the company for a certain amount of time).  The only other potential for monies would come from Short Term Disability (STD) or Long Term Disability (LTD) which generally pays 60% of your salary while you are out.  Most STD or LTD kicks in after a week or maybe 30 days at the longest. No biggie. So I signed up for both STD and LTD to make sure I would have some money coming in with baby.

Come to find out, unlike most companies, the U’s STD doesn’t kick in for 90 days and the LTD 180 days.  And if you are out the full 12 weeks with FMLA, that time would be unpaid unless you had vacation or sick time available.  I talked to my boss about my stresses of the University’s STD and lack of maternity pay.  She informed me that even if the STD kicked in sooner, she had never known of anyone using it for maternity as she didn’t think that fit the U’s criteria for disability.  So I wouldn’t be able to use either disability pays (that I had been paying for over a year) with my baby, unless I had to go on bed rest prior to her arrival…which semi counts for maternity and I wouldn’t get any money until the 90^th day anyway.  Needless to say, because their policy was awful, Husband and I were stressing about money.  I would like to be able to stay home for 12 weeks after our little lady arrives.  Going back to work when she is only 6 weeks old breaks my heart, 3 months seems a little less heartbreaking and doable.  And I HAVE to go back to work as I am the source of income for our family while Husband is finishing his school.  So, I pretty much told my boss that I want to plan to take the full 12 weeks, but realistically I might have to come back sooner because of monies.  Not cool.

Here is where the blessing comes in.

A couple of weeks ago, my boss stopped me as I came through the door of the office, “I have great news for you!” she exclaimed!  We sat down in her office and she told me that she was in a meeting the night before about the new vacation (PTO) policy the U was launching the beginning of October.  The University had reviewed their STD/LTD policies and had determined they needed a change.  As of October 1, they are going to do away with STD and only offer LTD.  With this change they will enroll ALL full time employees into the LTD program for no fee. The new LTD will now kick in after 30 days which will also now include maternity leave!  Hooray!  This means that the first two weeks I’m out, I’ll rely on my vacation/sick time I’ve accrued.  Then we’ll be paycheck - less for about 2 weeks (boo).  But then, we’ll be getting 60% percent of my salary for the remaining 8 weeks I’m home with my little lady.  We were stressing about saving enough monies for the entire 12 weeks (which seemed impossible) but now, we don’t have to save as much and I will be able to stay home for the full 12 weeks that FMLA affords.  What a great blessing!

The blessings keep pouring in, it is truly wonderful to know you have a Heavenly Father that loves you and blesses you for keeping His commandments.  I just have to keep remembering that when I’m uncomfortable at night and can’t sleep very well…and again when our little lady arrives and she is perfect.