The cost(s) of a C-section

So the damage is in. I have received a copy of the bill the hospital sent to my insurance company for my C-section, and the 5 days of in-hospital care for me and the baby, and bidding is now open for just how much $$ the bill has come to.

Take a guess! I'm curious how much you think this would be!

Got your number? Have it in mind? Okay ... so here it is. The total was $37,000. And all I can say is: "Yowzers." Just as a point of comparison, the cost of the delivery, had I been able to do so vaginally, was going to be $7,000 and that includes the cost of 9 months of prenatal care, and no fewer than 15 visits to the birth center for monthly, biweekly or weekly appointments. The fact no one caught the baby's upside down position cost my insurer $30,000.

So here is my question: Why are late-term ultrasounds not a standard, uniform practice of prenatal care? If I had been given an ultrasound, we would have known the baby was breech and they might have been able to do a manual manipulation, before I was in labor, and turn the baby around. I don't know how much ultrasounds cost, but even it it was $1,000, that is way less money than a C-section is.

This was one of the first questions we asked after the whole drama of Adi's birth. Was I not given a late-term ultrasound just because I was in a midwifery clinic, rather than a standard hospital/ob-gyn clinic for my prenatal care? And midwives tend to have a less-interventionist approach?

It turns out the answer was no. Medical doctors don't request them either, unless there is some question about the baby's position, and that is the same policy the midwives have. Of course FIVE midwives examined me in the weeks leading up to Adi's birth and none of them remotely suspected that she was breech.

It just goes to show what an imperfect science the whole thing is.

Health insurance companies care first and foremost about costs, and since about 3 out of 100 births are breech, I can only assume that the costs of paying for 3 emergency C-sections is less than the cost of giving all 100 women late-term ultrasounds. I assume. But who knows.

As for the personal costs, I will say this to the Christina Aguilera's and J.Lo's of the world: Anyone who electively plans a C-section over a vaginal delivery really is out of their frickin' mind.

It's been 12 days since my surgery and it still hurts to bend over, to walk, and even to wear underpants. (The waist bands all seem to hit right where the scar runs.) I still can't drive, and I won't be allowed to begin exercising for another 4.5 weeks, which, when you gained 50 pounds over the course of your pregnancy really really sucks! The worst part has been the fact that for the first five days or so, I could hardly even hold her. It hurt to lift her, it hurt to rest her on my belly (which is the only position I can use because of her leg braces), and it hurt to stand up and fetch her when she was crying.

I will echo what every other woman I know who has had an unplanned C-section has said: "The most important thing is we have a healthy baby, and she is okay." That is true. And I also wish a simple ultrasound had been conducted, that I might have avoided major abdominal surgery and the ramifications it inevitably brings.