Insensitive billing practices

I was doing so well at forgetting about it all. I had a nice Mother's Day with my wonderful parents and husband and the dogs. No babies or talk of babies or innuendos about babies. Well almost none. At one point my mom's friend, who I had just met that day but who knew that I was a newlywed, was flipping through a favorite cookbook and put her finger on some chili recipe. She looked squarely into my eyes and proclaimed "When I was pregnant, my girlfriend was pregnant too, and this was the stuff that was going to put us into labor." Oh and there was that time when I was holding our dog and my dad goes "your baby has a tail."

But other than those harmless quips, totally forgotten about. I have even resolved this week to only test my beta HCG once. Thursday night. Which is all we need to decide whether to do MTX #5 on Friday or to give it a rest.

I even had a beer and a glass of wine. I've focused on work, focused on our plight to adopt a second dog. I've talked about other things, even with the friends that know.

And then I got home and opened my mail. And there was a bill for the last few months of medical service co-pays. The first line item was my D&C for a "missed abortion." There was another for my post D&C u/s. And included in the envelope, for my convenience, was a brochure for a whole series of prenatal classes. How to give birth without pain meds. How to give birth with pain meds. How to make sure you are producing enough milk. How to make sure you're producing nutritious milk. How to choose a doctor for your baby. It went on and on. With pictures of smiling pregnant women in cute maternity clothes and happy attentive doctors. I just don't get it. Is it that uncommon for people to lose their babies? To need a D&C or a MTX injection? Is it so uncommon that the envelope stuffers figure it's worth making a few people sad if it gets the majority of people, the 'normal' women, needed information about classes on how to create life - something that women have been doing far before HMO's and alternative birth plans were devised? Is it really so rare that offense becomes merely an incidental, annoying side effect of the most efficient envelope stuffing practices? Is it so hard to exercise a little more discretion? Clearly they've identified a pregnancy-related visit. That's why I didn't get ads for fiber supplements or sports-medicine therapies. Is it too much more of a step to realize that I LOST MY BABY AND WON'T BE NEEDING THE CLASSES JUST NOW? Maybe stuff a pamphlet about antidepressants or grief counseling in there. That would be good. Thanks.

I'm going to bed.

UPDATE: regarding drinking. I thank Kim for her concern in the comments. That is one of the things these forums are good for, to watch out for one another. I also came to this community looking for anticdotal evidence of what other people experienced walking down the same (or similar) paths. So I should use this opportunity to document the advice my doctors gave me about drinking. Being quite suceptible to side effects myself (a therapist once called me "somatic") and a huge fan of wine I asked several people in the doctor's office about their advice on this matter. Dr. OBG said "wait until your levels are zero" which I think had less to do with the effects on my liver and more to do with her annoying textbook approach to my non-textbook case (see also her insistance on testing me for HCG levels on days 4 and 7 as if I had an ectopic pregnancy). So I asked the nurse administering the dose who said, "a couple days....I wouldn't drink tonight." Dr. DO also said the stuff was gone from your system within days. I do not take the health of my liver lightly. As I said, I'm a huge fan of wine and hope to be able to drink it well into my old age. I mentioned the drinking more to suggest that I am becoming less obsessively rigid about and consumed by the situation I'm in. And the two drinks were consumed over two days. I should mention that after the first dose of MTX I waited one week and then resumed my nightly wine glasses with no ill effects according to the subsequent metabolic work up. But, to be sure, I plan to stop drinking from now until Friday when we decide whether to progress with the MTX and will certainly insist on another metabolic workup this week, just to be safe.