Good news?

The conference was spectacular, I took a ton of pictures, we survived the flights, and Nora was way more excited about seeing Elyn last night at the airport than she was about seeing me. More about all of this later.

Last week, we received some unexpected good news. Let's go back in time several months...

When we found out we were pregnant with Elyn it was a bit of a shock (understatement of the century!). I cried and it sent Matthew into a mute state for a few days. I seriously was a little depressed for a few weeks. Don't worry, I'm over it now. Anyways, because she was such a big surprise, we were not prepared in insurance terms. Yes, we are THAT couple...no maternity insurance. I know, irresponsible, foolish, childish...there is a whole list of adjectives that you could use...but I didn't think it was necessary to shell out $200 extra bucks a month for some add-on insurance that we weren't going to be using for a long time. Hindsight=20/20.

What drives me crazy are the receptionists at the doctors office. "You mean you DON'T have insurance?" look at me with big eyes and shaking head at me, like I am two "Oh, well, I guess you can still go back and see the doctor." I want to scream at them, "Look, I have HEALTH insurance...back off!"

Okay, back on track...back to the good news.

So, if you don't have maternity insurance, they still expect you to pay for the delivery. Crazy, I know! But, they will give you a deal. If you pay everything ahead of time it's 30% off-BUT, it's still a whole heck of a lot of money! Thankfully, we were able to get the money together, partly through the generous donation the government made to us last year (they called it our income tax return) and partly through the miserable fireworks job Matthew took on last summer. So, when Elyn entered this world on October 1, 2007, she was paid for.

Fast forward to last Thursday afternoon.

I am getting the mail (absolutely one of my most favorite things to do!) and flipping through the envelopes to see if someone had sent me a late birthday card. (I know my birthday was almost 3 weeks ago, but I hold out for belated cards until around June). I notice an envelope with the name of our hospital in the upper left hand corner and sigh. The reason I sigh is because they have been sending us bills for the past two months. Matthew and I have both explained to them that we owe them ZERO dollars because we paid big time already. I'm thinking this is going to be another bill that I am going to have to call about.

I slit open the envelope and stare at a CHECK!!!!! Yep, a check. For a lot of money. WHAT!?!?!?

Turns out, when the insurance company filed the claim (or whatever they do, I just wrote "file the claim" because that sounded like insurance-speak and I have little knowledge of how the insurance company actually works) they said that I had an emergency delivery. Um...okay. We'll say it was emergency (so not!) and they reimbursed us for some of the money! I really hope some poor guy that "files the claims" is not out of a job anytime soon because his boss is a fan of my blog and just picked up on his mistake.

Whatever...THANK YOU GOD!

So, I am really excited and wanted to call someone and share the good news. Calling Matthew was out of the question because he was smack dab in the middle of teaching 7th graders the difference between fractions and percents (so that one of them can go on and "file claims" one day when he/she grows up). I call my mom instead.

"Hey, mom, guess what? I have good news!!!!!"

"You're pregnant!"

Okay, I'm going to stop right here and analyze why my mom was obviously not listening to me when I posed my question.

I said I had GOOD news. While being pregnant is a gift from above, I would not be one to consider having children a mere 12 months apart from each other good news. Although, I'm sure if she can (and have minimal repercussions), I'm sure I could too.

After I quit laughing hysterically, I told her the actual good news and was able to rejoice with someone.

Although, I think she secretly was sad she wasn't rejoicing about a 3rd grandchild.