We're having a girl!!

 We wanted to do our fall photos at the same place we did last year. On our way there, everybody was hungry and ornery so we just pulled over and took them on the side of the road. I think they turned out nice though.

 Last week we found out that Lilly is going to have a healthy little sister!! We are so excited.

My Presidential vote

If you are easily offended or sick of all the politics stuff, skip this post- I don't want to offend anyone but since I have to listen to everyone else's political philosophy without comment, I wanted to explore my own feelings. I thought this was a funny cartoon, because it puts into kid terms what I have discovered as one of the most frustrating attitudes that I have experienced since moving to M-ville.  The attitude of entitlement.  M-ville is a very economically deprived area. It has an extremely high unemployment rate and a huge number of people on disability and government assistance. We joke about it but it is a definite reality that one should not go to Walmart within the first few days of any given month without expecting huge lines of people cashing in their food stamps and assistance checks.  I know that some people truly need these services- we received WIC when we were in between jobs in MN. I have a problem with a system that makes it more appealing to stay at home and not work than it is to get a job.   A huge number of my patient's families are on "disability" and have been for years. They are able to take out their trash, take their kids to the water parks, but they can't get a job, even a part-time one because they will lose their food, $, and insurance benefits. What we need is a system of stepping stones that make it more desirable to work than to not work. Maybe let them keep their benefits until they make a certain ammount and then back them off slowly.

We also need a total revamp of the medicaid system. We need to make it less desirable for people on medicaid to go to the ER for every little thing. Our hospital has a real problem of overcrowding in our ER because people go there for headaches or nosebleeds. You can bet if they charged a fee, even a small one ($20), it would curb some of the unnecessary trips. It's so frustrating to me that I pay hundreds of dollars each month for insurance, but that I can't take my kids to the Dr. because we have $40-$60 co-pays every time we go. So we try and cure everything ourselves which usually works but frustrates me that my friends can take their babies in every time they have a cold because they have no co-pays.

One of the things I work with all the time is helping the elderly qualify for medicaid. If a person gets sick and needs care in their home, Medicaid will pay for it but traditional Medicare does not. Medicaid covers equipment and nursing home stays where Medicare is limited. It is so frustrating that a person who works all their lives, buys a home and a car and saves up a couple thousand as their nest egg but doesn't have near the money needed to pay for in-home care gets denied and is unable to get the care they need. Yet someone who doesn't work or save anything or gives everything away is rewarded. I hear all the time, "The government owes me. I've worked hard all my life, they should take care of me." I can understand this feeling and for many people I agree. Sometimes though, I hear it from someone who has money or is unwilling to "spend down"  a few thousand to pay for 24-hour nursing services. Don't they think they have any responsibility for their care? They could have bought long-term disability insurance. Don't they think that it's fair for them to pay a few thousand dollars in return for the government paying millions to care for them for the rest of their life?  One of Obamacare's projects that is really backfiring is this new regulation that if a person gets discharged from a hospital and then gets readmitted within 60 days, the hospital and the Primary Dr. are charged huge fines. In theory, this is supposed to help because if a person gets a headache the Dr. will try and solve the problem rather than send them to the ER. In reality, people who are high risk of returning to the hospital are getting dropped by Drs. and refused by hospitals because they don't want to deal with them. How is that in the patient's best interest? It's not.

There are so many problems with "the system" and I feel like it really needs to be revamped. I am especially concerned with the deficit and that our country keeps spending more than we make. I'm all for good government programs and helping people but the spending needs to get under control.  No matter who wins the election I hope that he can make those tough decisions that our country needs. We need to make cutbacks and the person that makes them will be very unpopular. The only person I know that might be able to be that person is Mitt Romney. From his background, he seems able to make the tough unpopular decisions. I know he's not perfect and the book I read "Mormon in the Whitehouse" was probably biased, but I know we can't keep running up the deficit.  I am so sick of all of the negative political adds and the negative debates. They make me not want to vote for either one. I know it's a job I would never want. But it is important to vote and I am excited to be in a "swing"state so that my vote actually counts. (That's another thing I think needs to be changed-the electorial college needs to go and we can just go by the popular vote- maybe it will eventually be like American Idol and we can all just text our votes in...) I will be voting for Romney next week and praying that America can solve our system problems and be the great nation under God that we were founded under.

Doctor's Visit

Item #1: We are expecting again! I think the people who read this already know that but just in case...

Item#2:
I had an experience this week that has been frustrating and scary and left me with some questions about  our healthcare system. Last friday my Dr called and said I needed to get a blood draw and a CBC ASAP because they forgot to take an extra vial at my appointment on thursday. I went to my hospital and even though my boss said I could just have my nurse friend draw it, they still made me register and pay $50+ for an "out-patient procedure." Then on Monday I got a phone message from the O.B. Drs. office saying that there was something wrong with my blood and that they had made an appointment for me at the Cancer Research Institute in Roanoke for 2:30 on friday. My platelet count is off, that's all it said! So of course, I began to worry some and wonder what was wrong. I looked it up on the internet which is not always wise. The only connection between low platelet count and pregnancy was something called HELLP syndrome which is potentially fatal and the only cure is immediate delivery of fetus which at 16 weeks would not survive.

I wasn't necessarily stressing out because I figured they were just being safe but as the appointment got closer and I thought "cancer center" I began to think of my cousin who was diagnosed with cancer while she was pregnant. I decided it would be better to have Adam with me for support so we arranged to have a babysitter come over and we drove up together. After a $60 copay and a bunch of paperwork, we sat in the office for 2 hours waiting to see the Dr. As I looked around the room at all the people undergoing chemo, with hair loss and the like, I began to become more anxious. Then all that was showing on the television was the View having a special episode about Breast Cancer. When we finally went in to see the Dr. I was somewhat prepared for the worst. He started interviewing me and asking every question in the book. After an hour of questions, he finally reviewed the bloodwork with me and began asking his Intern,  "Could it be this? Could it be that? What do you think about this?" they covered everything form Lupus to Guillan Barre to Rheumatoid arthritis to bone cancer. Finally he said that the numbers weren't severely low and especially considering when I had my last blood test right before Lilly was born, the platelet count was low then. Also the white blood count was low and that's what they couldn't figure out. So they said that the best thing would be to just watch and see if they get worse.  He ran a bunch more tests and said I might want to get an ultrasound of my spleen (which would cost me several hundred dollars and probably show that everything was normal).

I am extremely grateful and relieved that everything came back fine and that we didn't hear any awful news. I just wonder if it even occurs to the Drs. what it does to a person to hear a voice message that they need to go to a cancer center. (Which consequently is the same facility as the hematology lab- they just call it the cancer center). Do they realize how much that freaks a person out? Why do the Drs. have to keep you waiting so long. My patients are always complaining about long Drs. waits. But if I have a 2:30 appointment and I arrive 30 mins. early, I expect to be seen before 4:00. And what about cost? Do Drs. even consider that all these tests they want to run cost me money? I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry and if there was something wrong I would want to know about it but it just seems like such a waste for them to brainstorm tests that will "all probably be negative but we just want to cover ourselves."

He asked me to come back in a month but I don't know if I will because my OBGYN can check my blood counts. I also refused the spleen ultrasound and I figure I'll just ask them to check it when I have my baby ultrasound. They'll probably say no because it's not their specialty but I figure it's worth a try.

Again, I am so grateful that things seem to be progressing well and I have been feeling pretty good- comparitively. I have many friends who are struggling with infertility and other who have had miscarriages. Adam and I have not had to deal with either and that scares me because I feel like it is probably our turn or our due.  I thank my Heavenly Father for the opportunity I have to be a mother and for my 3 1/2 wonderful children.  Our ultrasound is in 3 weeks and then we should find out gender :) yay!

Spontenaity and Tweetsie Railroad Labor Day 2012

At different times in our lives, Adam and I have been known for being spontaneous people. In fact that was one of the reasons I married him. One night when we were dating he randomly drove me to an overlook in Park City where we could see the big full moon just right. Then the next date we driving somewhere and a good song came on and he stopped the car on a rooftop so we could have our own private swing dance. It drove some of our more planning oriented friends crazy at first, but then they got used to us. 

Over the last 9 years, it has become a little harder to be spontaneous. For one thing, to haul 3 kids, a baby (or 2 depending on how some of us are acting) it takes enough gear to fill up a minivan even for a simple day trip. Cost is another thing that impedes us sometimes. Around here we don't have any free cabins to stay in so any trip usually requires a hotel stay and gas of course. If we want to go to Olive Garden or Target even, it takes an hour of driving so we better really want that olive garden...  Spontenaity is something I've been missing and this weekend we had a chance to renew ourselves. Sunday night Adam asked if I was going to work on Labor Day. (I could have if I wanted to but noone was depending on me to work.) One of the things on our bucket list was to go see tweetsie railroad. It is a small train themed amusement park that had been recommended to us down in North Carolina. We looked it up and it looked pretty fun. We asked some friends to go with us, but they declined and said it looked like it might rain. It's also 3.5 hours away and cost more than we had originally thought.  We thought about it and said, "What the heck, let's just be spontaneous and do it!" So we woke up at the regular time 7:00 because our kids do not ever sleep in and drove down to Boon, NC. We found a little coupon at the grocery store and had a great time.  They had rides and shows.

 This is us ready for action. The park is built on a mountain so Adam and Lilly had taken the ramp and we took the stairs. There were ALOT of stairs.

 Ready for action!!

 Crazy guys on the Tornado.

 Cute girls panning for gold. That was Jack's favorite part. He is really into rocks right now. Especially shiny ones- crystals, gold, and jewels.

 Feeding the goats. They had feed in an ice cream cone but the animals favorite treat was the CONE! They fed llamas, ostridge, deer and lots of goats.

 Following this adventure, the boys were supposed to go with me down the chair lift to the other side of the park but Jack ran ahead and got lost. Then we had a huge downpour. It was raining so hard everyone ran for cover. I called adam and told him jack was lost. He ran through the rain to ask the chair lift man if jack had come down alone and he hadn't. Someone had taken jack to an employee and I tracked him down up by the animals. Whew, that was our first lost child experience and got all our hearts pounding. Needless to say, we had some little chats about staying together and what to do if you find yourself missing.

 The saloon girls we watched their show while we ate our lunchables.

 Cute Lilly riding on the train. i just love taking her pictures.

 The train was heisted by bandits who had a shootout in the wild west town. Then they were attacked by Indians at the next stop. The boys sure dug the shoot outs.  The cowboys were pretty funny. It made us think of cherry hill and made me wish I could have worked at a place like that for my summer jobs.

 Jack behind the wheel- watch out!!

 A real ferris wheel- makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it.

 Adam and Jack did the crazy big kid rides and Jack wanted to ride them over and over.

 "World famour tweetsie cloggers" or so they called themselves.

 Lilly on the stage coach.

It rained some but for us it was great because it kept the other people away and we had no lines. We could ride the rides as many times as we wanted. We drove home and got back around 10:00 PM with 4 sleepers in the car. It felt a little crazy and a little spontaneous but ahhh, it feels good to be back.