Birth, houses, etc.
Here in Haslett we're getting pretty frustrated with the attitude of today's OB-GYN healthcare specialists. In the '70s when she lived in Munster, Indiana, my mom saw ONE primary doctor throughout her pregnancy. If I'm not mistaken, he probably worked out of a large clinic in Munster called the Hammond Clinic. That doctor was the one who delivered me in '79 at the Munster Community Hospital. He was also the one who delivered her stillbirth in '76. Even though she was going up to Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago for monthly amniocenteses, and at one point up to the medical center at Northwestern University, this Dr. Luna was always the main dude in charge.
Fast-forward to AD 2007. We call our primary health center for referral to an OB-GYN specialist because my wife is going on three months pregnant - or maybe it's three months already, I'm not 100% sure. I ask if we can make an appointment with a doctor we'd been told about. Geni is told we can't make an appointment with that individual doctor, because they just make appointments with whoever happens to be available. A few days later (today), I call a different place and get the same story. But this time I get an explanation - the person who delivers the kid is the one who happens to be on-call at the time, so they want you to get acquainted with their entire team to guarantee that you've met the person doing the delivery. But the first place doesn't have that excuse, because their doctors don't even deliver!
In addition to that, we've both read that the rate of hospital C-section deliveries is in the neighborhood of 25% nationwide and also in "Mid-Michigan". And I'm told that once a C-section is done once, it's not particularly safe not to do it subsequent times, or bad things can happen.
So we're thinking a nearby place called the Greenhouse Birth Center might be more than worth looking into. The bad news is that our medical plan will only pay 80% of the total bill. Which seems kind of funny since their total bill is said to be about one-third the usual total bill from a hospital. [EDIT: I'm told it's more like 58%, not 1/3] However, a little over a grand seems *awfully* cheap when taking into account the claims of lower risk for normal deliveries, being able to always work with the same person, the fact that the bill includes everything-everything-everything from start to finish, and the advertised family-friendly environment is just an insignificant perk, all things considered. Heck, it seems pretty cheap even just for the nominal decreased probability of my wife being maimed for life. Guess we'll have to get in there for a visit pretty soon.
On the house front, I'm still discouraged with the yukky neighborhoods I'm seeing in Lansing proper, but I have a list of about 60 MLS numbers that are a little more out of the way and look pretty attractive. And most of them are cheaper. And hopefully none have huge holes in the walls and floor like a couple places we looked at the other day. I don't mind a place that needs work, but the prospect of doing a Tim Allen without anything even breaking is a little disconcerting. One place I'm particularly interested in at this point is actually inside city limits, and definitely needs at least a little cosmetic updating, but it's just under $70k and has a half-acre and TWO garages! A three-car garage by the house has a pass-through overhead door in the back that leads to a small one-car garage at the back of the property. As they say in California, "Sweet."
Fast-forward to AD 2007. We call our primary health center for referral to an OB-GYN specialist because my wife is going on three months pregnant - or maybe it's three months already, I'm not 100% sure. I ask if we can make an appointment with a doctor we'd been told about. Geni is told we can't make an appointment with that individual doctor, because they just make appointments with whoever happens to be available. A few days later (today), I call a different place and get the same story. But this time I get an explanation - the person who delivers the kid is the one who happens to be on-call at the time, so they want you to get acquainted with their entire team to guarantee that you've met the person doing the delivery. But the first place doesn't have that excuse, because their doctors don't even deliver!
In addition to that, we've both read that the rate of hospital C-section deliveries is in the neighborhood of 25% nationwide and also in "Mid-Michigan". And I'm told that once a C-section is done once, it's not particularly safe not to do it subsequent times, or bad things can happen.
So we're thinking a nearby place called the Greenhouse Birth Center might be more than worth looking into. The bad news is that our medical plan will only pay 80% of the total bill. Which seems kind of funny since their total bill is said to be about one-third the usual total bill from a hospital. [EDIT: I'm told it's more like 58%, not 1/3] However, a little over a grand seems *awfully* cheap when taking into account the claims of lower risk for normal deliveries, being able to always work with the same person, the fact that the bill includes everything-everything-everything from start to finish, and the advertised family-friendly environment is just an insignificant perk, all things considered. Heck, it seems pretty cheap even just for the nominal decreased probability of my wife being maimed for life. Guess we'll have to get in there for a visit pretty soon.
On the house front, I'm still discouraged with the yukky neighborhoods I'm seeing in Lansing proper, but I have a list of about 60 MLS numbers that are a little more out of the way and look pretty attractive. And most of them are cheaper. And hopefully none have huge holes in the walls and floor like a couple places we looked at the other day. I don't mind a place that needs work, but the prospect of doing a Tim Allen without anything even breaking is a little disconcerting. One place I'm particularly interested in at this point is actually inside city limits, and definitely needs at least a little cosmetic updating, but it's just under $70k and has a half-acre and TWO garages! A three-car garage by the house has a pass-through overhead door in the back that leads to a small one-car garage at the back of the property. As they say in California, "Sweet."