John and Chelsy 9: Title Update: Baby Madeline Is Here 10 Weeks Early

[PennySycamore]

@SPHASH, some years ago there was an effort to claim that induced abortion caused breast cancer. The so-called research was completely spurious.  Neither induced abortion nor spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) cause cancer.

[Coconut Flan]

The reason micropreemies and preemies with disabilities qualify without concern for parental income and resources is that they've never been in the home and are considered "institutionalized."  As soon as they are discharged to the parents, then they are in the home and parental income and resources count.  

[GreenBeans]

13 hours ago, fundiefan said:

I just skimmed through and stopped at this:

Expenses Not Shared—Procedures directly related to the termination of a living, unborn child and/or removal of the living, unborn child from the mother due to an ectopic pregnancy are not shared (e.g. methotrexate, salpingectomy, salpingostomy), unless the removal of the child from its ectopic location was for the primary purpose of saving the life of the child or improving the health of the child.

So, if mom is gonna die because of an ectopic pregnancy, too bad, so sad. We will only pay if involves saving the preborn fetus; the living, breathing mother's life is irrelevant. 

Reading their rules & exceptions & justifications, I fail to see how anyone in any realm thinks they are a good choice for health care expenses. 

I fail to see how anyone could consider this “pro life”.

[Bluebirdbluebell]

3 hours ago, SPHASH said:

2Anna had three babies three years in a row...Ruthie (Feb 18 2014), Lydia (March 23 2015), and Danny (July 5 2016). Then she had Lizzy (Feb 23 2018).  With all the talk about risk of miscarriage when getting pregnant so quickly after giving birth I wonder if she miscarried between Danny and Liz which explains the longer than usual gap.  Can miscarriages raise the risk of cancer?

Hormone imbalance can cause cancer and hormone imbalance can also contribute to miscarriages.  No there is no link between one miscarriage wouldn't cancer.  

Most women who have large families end up with at least one miscarriage. If miscarriages caused breast cancer, you would see a much higher rate of breast cancer in younger women. Instead most of the women who have breast cancer are perimenopausal.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Bluebirdbluebell

[Foudeb]

One pregnancy in four ends in miscarriage. Nature is the greatest abotionist of us all. I can guarantee *a lot* of people around you have had a miscarriage, some more than one. There is a big taboo around talking about it, so you won't know but (PSA here) if you do have one and you feel you want to share - do. You'll be surprised how many people have had a similar experience and will be able to say or do something that helps. 

Tl;Dr lots of bad things happen at random. Odds are, it's nothing you did, not your fault, mother nature can be cruel, don't feel guilty, and for heaven's sake don't make people feel guilty about it. 

Our pet fundies give us so much to snark on, let's not imply they are in some way responsible for losing much wanted pregnancies. 

/ soap box

[Green bean satan]

Wow, that’s a pretty good weight for a preemie, hopefully all goes well. My SIL had a massive personality disorder so she wanted attention during her first pregnancy and stopped eating. I warned her hubby and family, but was told I was just jealous. Fine. Baby weighed little over 4 pounds. Second pregnancy, it got worse. Finally people listened. SIL got admitted. Full term baby weighed 4 pounds and 120 grams. After 40 weeks. I asked why they didn’t just force feed her, but the doctor was convinced my SIL’s problems were pregnancy related. He was wrong. They found that out when they were treating my niece for epilepsie and someone accidentally used her blood for a drugstest instead of blood chem whatever test. Turned out SIL had been feeding antidepressants to her newborn….For some reason BIL is still with SIL. He did get a vasectomy though ?

[nelliebelle1197]

On 7/11/2021 at 2:05 AM, Bluebirdbluebell said:

I don't think it's that simple. Both Kendra and Tori had babies with close to this spacing and they didn't have births that are this premature. We can probably think of more fundies with babies this close in age. I know a fundie in real life who her first two 17 months apart and her second and third were 14 months apart (all of these pregnancies were close full term. Technically the first child was early term.)

There are probably other reasons why the baby was early. 

It probably has more to do with the hospital and maybe the state of Kansas. Maxwells are rule followers at least, but Chelsy posted a selfie last year of herself 9 months pregnant with Elliot in a public restroom. Both families had weddings during the Pandemic. The Maxwells had fewer people at the wedding, and immediately held a birthday party for Gigi. 

Neither the Maxwells nor the Bontragers have a stellar record when it comes to science. 

Editing: It was nine months and here's a link to picture of Chelsy pregnant with no mask. 

Steve and Teri Maxwell were scientists and they actually do have a healthy respect for modern medicine. Steve had a career in the sciences for decades. I would not lump Maxwells and Bontragers into the same categories on that. I would also guess that the Maxwells are vaccinated- especially the seniors. They just are not going to talk about it.

 

[nelliebelle1197]

15 hours ago, ksuheather said:

Baby Maddie is roughly 1550g so she would automatically qualify for Medicaid. (At least according to this link from a childrens hospital)

https://www.chkd.org/blog/is-your-baby-eligible-for-social-security-or-medicaid-/

Even though we had excellent insurance, we got Medicaid for our preemie. It is too bad John and Chelsy are stuck with Scamaritan. We paid about $1000 out of pocket.

Edited July 12, 2021 by nelliebelle1197

[nelliebelle1197]

5 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

The reason micropreemies and preemies with disabilities qualify without concern for parental income and resources is that they've never been in the home and are considered "institutionalized."  As soon as they are discharged to the parents, then they are in the home and parental income and resources count.  

It did not  end with us when we left the hospital. We were eligible until the youngest was deemed healthy by her specialists. We had a 12 or 18 month (can’t remember now) in person review with SS. We definitely did not and do not qualify ordinarily. 

Edited July 12, 2021 by nelliebelle1197
Ruffles and riffles

[anachronistic]

In my state all preemies (not sure of the definition of preemie, though) automatically qualify for early intervention. It starts in the hospital and continues 1-2x a week in the home. It’s almost always an enthusiastic young (20’s) woman with a bag full of toys who sees the family all together and focuses on what they can do to help Baby catch up/ reach their milestones. They do a lot of assessments and are the person who gets specific occupational, physical, speech therapists, etc, involved if necessary. I’ve never known any family that dislikes EI - it’s meant to be fun, and it is, with games, songs, etc. Unfortunately the pay is terrible, it’s constant travel with no office and no colleagues, so people burn out fast, and either move on to doing location-based services, like at a hospital or school, or get further education to qualify as a specific type of therapist. Of all the Maxwells I think Chelsy would be the most likely to welcome a therapist into their home because she is so comfortable traveling and meeting other people.
 

If Baby goes home with a feeding tube or oxygen, they may qualify for home nursing, too, or at least home nursing consultations. But she looks amazing and I’d never guess her to be 10 weeks early. It is kind of amazing, though, to think that so tiny a baby is a baby. I’m a baker and to me a pound is 4 sticks of butter, and I briefly thought oh my gosh, that’s just 13 sticks of butter! I’ve probably made recipes with a baby’s worth of butter! 
 

Eliot and Madeline go really well together as names. Axton, not so much.

[SassyPants]

15 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

Micropreemies are covered by Medicaid.  Other preemies may be covered depending on if they have a qualifying condition.  A healthy, but young, infant with no extra issues won't be covered.  

A baby born before 34 weeks, no matter the weight,  will be enrolled in early intervention services which monitors auditory, vision, milestones, speech and vaccinations like RSV. I think these are state funded- 

[Coconut Flan]

4 hours ago, nelliebelle1197 said:

It did not  end with us when we left the hospital. We were eligible until the youngest was deemed healthy by her specialists. We had a 12 or 18 month (can’t remember now) in person review with SS. We definitely did not and do not qualify ordinarily. 

There are exceptions.  I used to do the claims authorization.  I don't go into the weeds of various cases now because the rules change over time.   The overall rules have stayed the same.  It's possible to continue Medicaid (depending on the state) and not receive SSI payments for the child.  

1 hour ago, SassyPants said:

A baby born before 34 weeks, no matter the weight,  will be enrolled in early intervention services which monitors auditory, vision, milestones, speech and vaccinations like RSV. I think these are state funded- 

I was talking about Medicaid and SSI not state early intervention.  That was never my job.  But that's the theory.  In actual practice in some states they don't have enough funding to provide all the services and people end up wait listed or having to fight to get them.  We had a friend in another state with a micropreemie who even had to fight to get his RSV shots.  They were wait listed for both speech and occupational therapy.  Friends here with 32 week twins got almost nothing besides evaluation as the twins thankfully had no problems and progressed very well.  On the other hand a friend's granddaughter was known to have Down syndrome before birth and the early intervention people had the child on their list before delivery.   They even had classes for the prospective parents to know what to expect and how to prepare.  

Edited July 12, 2021 by Coconut Flan

[nelliebelle1197]

40 minutes ago, Coconut Flan said:

There are exceptions.  I used to do the claims authorization.  I don't go into the weeds of various cases now because the rules change over time.   The overall rules have stayed the same.  It's possible to continue Medicaid (depending on the state) and not receive SSI payments for the child.  

I was talking about Medicaid and SSI not state early intervention.  That was never my job.  But that's the theory.  In actual practice in some states they don't have enough funding to provide all the services and people end up wait listed or having to fight to get them.  We had a friend in another state with a micropreemie who even had to fight to get his RSV shots.  They were wait listed for both speech and occupational therapy.  Friends here with 32 week twins got almost nothing besides evaluation as the twins thankfully had no problems and progressed very well.  On the other hand a friend's granddaughter was known to have Down syndrome before birth and the early intervention people had the child on their list before delivery.   They even had classes for the prospective parents to know what to expect and how to prepare.  

CF, we got SSI! The social worker arranged it all for us!

[SassyPants]

I do think many of these services are ultimately funded by states. If you live in a red state, *cough* KS, funds might be more restricted. 

[HereticHick]

1 hour ago, SassyPants said:

I do think many of these services are ultimately funded by states. If you live in a red state, *cough* KS, funds might be more restricted. 

This appears to be Kansas's Early Intervention Program: http://www.ksits.org/

[Bluebirdbluebell]

3 hours ago, SassyPants said:

I do think many of these services are ultimately funded by states. If you live in a red state, *cough* KS, funds might be more restricted. 

And Steve and Teri deliberately chose KS, because it's a red state with low taxes. It has low taxes, because people don't want to fund anything.

[Howl]

My impression is that Chelsy is a good cook and they eat plenty of fresh, wholesome food, so perhaps that contributed to the baby's overall health. 

[kpmom]

Do you think Chelsy and John will accept help from Medicaid, Early Intervention programs, etc.?

ETA:  Just looked at the KS Early Intervention site that @HereticHick  provided.   It talks about home visits, parent training, etc.  You know how fundies are about government intervening in their lives.

Edited July 12, 2021 by kpmom

[Jana814]

1 minute ago, kpmom said:

Do you think Chelsy and John will accept help from Medicaid, Early Intervention programs, etc.?

 

I don’t think so. It would be nice if they did. 

[SassyPants]

39 minutes ago, Howl said:

My impression is that Chelsy is a good cook and they eat plenty of fresh, wholesome food, so perhaps that contributed to the baby's overall health. 

Fresh foods can be expensive. I would hope they would deem decent food a priority!

[Bluebirdbluebell]

12 hours ago, nelliebelle1197 said:

Steve and Teri Maxwell were scientists and they actually do have a healthy respect for modern medicine. Steve had a career in the sciences for decades. I would not lump Maxwells and Bontragers into the same categories on that. I would also guess that the Maxwells are vaccinated- especially the seniors. They just are not going to talk about it.

Maybe they're a step-up from the Bontragers, but they're still not firmly pro-science imo. Sarah did a post in June that sounded as if the Pandemic was over. They still wear masks wear required, because they're rule followers. However I think someone saw a picture of them in church not wearing masks, and certainly they didn't wear masks for Jesse's wedding. Jesse got married in 2020 on Memorial Day weekend. They had out-of-town guests including the bride's family and the Bontragers. 

There are probably more examples I'm not mentioning or missing.

Being a scientist doesn't make someone pro-science. For example, ex-Congressman Paul Broun.  Paul Broun was a doctor who practiced medicine for over 30 years. He later became a Congressman. He became famous nation-wide after a tape circulated of him saying that "Evolution are lies from the pit-of-hell".  He is also young-earther, according to his wikipedia page.  He is now retired although he was head of the house science committee while in Congress. 

Edited July 12, 2021 by Bluebirdbluebell

[ContrastingButtons]

14 hours ago, Foudeb said:

Tl;Dr lots of bad things happen at random. Odds are, it's nothing you did, not your fault, mother nature can be cruel, don't feel guilty, and for heaven's sake don't make people feel guilty about it.

Absolutely.  When it comes to pregnancy loss and premature labour/birth, medical professionals rarely know why it happens.  It just does.  And it’s not fair.  Shaming or blaming people who experience loss is not kind or helpful.   (I don’t think anyone here was doing that, but I could have missed it.)

Having said that, there are risks associated with closely spaced pregnancies - risks to both to the health of pregnant person and to the fetus.  These are well documented, scientific facts.  

I will never understand how quiverful fundamentalist can claim to be “pro life”.  They are pro pregnancy.  They are pro birth.  Maternal and fetal health and  outcomes are not given much, if any, consideration.  That’s not respecting life, in my opinion.  That is “building an army for God”, health outcomes be damned. 

Edited July 12, 2021 by ContrastingButtons
Clarity

[JermajestyDuggar]

42 minutes ago, ContrastingButtons said:

Absolutely.  When it comes to pregnancy loss and premature labour/birth, medical professionals rarely know why it happens.  It just does.  And it’s not fair.  Shaming or blaming people who experience loss is not kind or helpful.   (I don’t think anyone here was doing that, but I could have missed it.)

Having said that, there are risks associated with closely spaced pregnancies - risks to both to the health of pregnant person and to the fetus.  These are well documented, scientific facts.  

I will never understand how quiverful fundamentalist can claim to be “pro life”.  They are pro pregnancy.  They are pro birth.  Maternal and fetal health and  outcomes are not given much, if any, consideration.  That’s not respecting life, in my opinion.  That is “building an army for God” health outcomes be damned. 

I’m so glad there is one fundie who seems to be listening to her doctor and that is Courtney. Number 11 had a very traumatic birth and emergency csection where she lost oxygen at one point. The doctor told her to hold off on getting pregnant even though she says she wants 12 kids total. And she seems to be doing that so far. She’s also getting physical therapy for the baby. 

[nelliebelle1197]

17 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I’m so glad there is one fundie who seems to be listening to her doctor and that is Courtney. Number 11 had a very traumatic birth and emergency csection where she lost oxygen at one point. The doctor told her to hold off on getting pregnant even though she says she wants 12 kids total. And she seems to be doing that so far. She’s also getting physical therapy for the baby. 

Where is she posting now?

[Bluebirdbluebell]

15 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I’m so glad there is one fundie who seems to be listening to her doctor and that is Courtney. Number 11 had a very traumatic birth and emergency csection where she lost oxygen at one point. The doctor told her to hold off on getting pregnant even though she says she wants 12 kids total. And she seems to be doing that so far. She’s also getting physical therapy for the baby. 

Courtney Rogers is the last person I would say is listening to her doctor! She has kids less than 12 months apart!  Chelsy got sh*t for her spacing, but Courtney's is even more ridiculous. It's not like one or two kids are particularly close together, it's all 11 of them!  Not one of them is 18 months apart! We have no idea how the doctor has been suggesting leaving a large gap between kids. It took a dangerous birth with long term health consequences for both mama and baby for her to listen to her doctor.