Personal Finance Story: News – Good and Sad

That summer of 2006, we were surprised with a blessing – our third pregnancy!! We knew (or maybe I knew) we would always have three kiddos (no matter how insane I may become) so this announcement was just a completion to our family (and finally my goal to know that after this baby was here, I could officially attempt to lose the pregnancy weight, ya know what I mean :).

This pregnancy was completely normal. I wasn't anymore sick with this than I was with T and Caleb. I even thought “I will get this girl, finally!” Oh, did God have other plans for us!

I share a lot of this in my previous post, but we did find out that Andon had a kidney blockage. We were told it would correct itself upon birth, and typically did in 99.9% of cases. As a mom, you just freak out when you know anything is wrong so that wasn't too assuring but we were scheduled for a follow-up ultrasound to see more.

Well, through the subsequent visits, it was confirmed that our little bambino had Hydronephrosis. I always thought it was funny when people would say “well, the worst is that he would lose his kidney.” Um, yeah…but I kinda helped make those kidneys so I'd like to KEEP THEM if at all possible thankyouverymuch :) Again, my motherly paranoia (and selfishness) I guess!

But, it was at that moment that we were faced with a very large out of pocket maximum for our son's potential surgery. At the time, our expense would be $5,500. Insurance is an absolute blessing, for sure. A surgery like this would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars so we would likely be paying that out of pocket expense. It was clearly better than paying the entire amount.

We had virtually no savings built up and just a single-income flowing in. Saving that amount of cash plus the regular expenses of a new baby was going to be a challenge. Since there would potentially be future doctor visits, I couldn't go back to work and be all like, “Hi, go ahead and hire me and I will need to take this time off for a sick child.” Yeah, most employers are just all over hiring someone with those restrictions! We had to do something. Any parent would do whatever it takes to ensure their kids are healthy (that's a no brainer, huh). I mean, the money wasn't going to just magically appear.

Or was it?

Personal Finance Story Related Posts

{1} Love and Marriage
{2} Jobs and Education
{3} Baby and Job Loss
{4} Graduation = Promotion and Relocation
{5} New Job, New City, New Home
{6} Transition and Loss
{7} Stretching and Earning Income

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