Bills, Bills, and More Bills

As we walked in the door this afternoon there were three medical bills. I added it to the same pile that I put the other bazillion bills that we've gotten since Rocky's birth. The annoying thing about all those bills is that I am never quite sure which ones we are supposed to pay, and which ones are just there to torment me. Luckily, even though we don't have recycling here in East Layton, my mom has a nifty blue bin where I can give final rest to this immense waste of resources. Unfortunately, before they can be ground up and turned into more junk mail, we have to pay them. Brandon usually takes care of deciphering the actual amount owed. He says that since I had to deal with the whole pregnancy and labor that he will take care of the paper work. I'm glad because whenever I see how much things cost I start feeling guilty. While I was in labor I felt absolutely sure that I wanted that epidural, but a month later, when I received the bill, I wondered why I hadn't just bit the bullet and suffered my way through. Of course, reading a bill, while in my own home completely out of pain, is a little bit of a different environment. I've heard a lot of women who choose natural birth because they feel that it is safer for the baby, or that they want to "really" experience labor. I admire women like that, but if I ever chose to go natural it would be because I'm too cheap to pay for the pain killer. Hopefully by the time I'm in that situation again we will have better insurance.
The bills only got worse once the baby was actually here. I'm fine with whatever it costs to take care of her immunizations and all the tests they gave her to make sure she was healthy, but there are plenty of other things that have been sucking our savings dollar by dollar. For example, every time I take her to the pediatrician we have a $20 co-pay. Well, because my baby did not gain weight for the first month of her life I had to return three more times for weight checks. This meant that I would go into the office and pay twenty bucks to have the "official" scale make me feel even more concerned than I already did. The doctor would then tell me that I needed to make sure that Rocky gained more weight and could I bring her back next week? By the last weight check the nurses recognized me. We all cheered when she finally passed.
Whenever I start getting frustrated about our health care system mess I have to stop and look at my little girl. I don't care if the co-pay was a thousand dollars, she would be worth every single cent.

(Don't tell my insurance company that I said that.)