(Not so) On My Own

Firstly, I need to thank my readers for your awesome support following my last entry.  Not only did I receive lots of helpful and encouraging comments, but I'm proud to report that the entry was picked up and syndicated by BlogHer.com!  So, we're making headway here, folks.  Any day now, that book deal is going to appear in my inbox...  I put it on the vision board in my mind, you guys.

Secondly, my good friend, Tom Viola at Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, whom I've known forever, read the blog and contacted The Actors Fund on my behalf.  I am relieved to say that The Actors Fund has come through for me in a major way and I will be forever in their debt.

If you would like to help me in thanking either organization, please click one of the links below to send a tax deductible donation!  Think of it as a baby shower gift!

To donate to The Actors Fund, click here!

To donate to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, click here!

In other news, all the baby books say it's common for pregnant ladies to have vivid dreams.  I've had extraordinarily bizarre dreams all my life.  When I was a teenager I dreamt once that I was giving a 20 foot high devil a blow job.  Please don't ask me about the mechanics of that.  I have no idea.  Generally, my dreams have been epic and complicated.

I've only had a handful of dreams about my mother in the nearly 20 years since her death, though, which is disappointing and somehow ends up making me feel guilty.  Like, if I were a better daughter I would dream about her more often.  Early on the dreams were about seeing her on the subway and trying to get her attention only to catch up to her and realize she was a little, old Chinese lady (she had a similar build to the little, old Chinese ladies I used to see in China Town.).  And, of course I had a couple dreams in which she was inexplicably back in my life and no one wanted to address the impossibility of that. 

Oddly enough, the past six months have proven largely quiet on the dream front.  In the week after we decided to go through with this whole thing and have the kid I dreamt I gave birth to a perfectly viable three inch baby.  I swaddled it and carried it around in a pocket protector.  That same week I dreamt we had a sonogram that was like a perfect snapshot and we found out the baby was half Japanese. . .  When I reported this to Dr. Yamaguchi she said, "You didn't tell me I was the father!"  She was a great O.B.  Otherwise I've had a couple apocalyptic dreams in which I had to fight bad guys (or zombies) while carrying a newborn.  Kurt had a dream in which someone gave us a baby Orangutan to care for.  One of it's arms was longer than the other.  I'm really hoping these dreams aren't prophetic.  Otherwise, I'll be giving birth to a three inch, Japanese, lopsided Orangutan during a zombie apocalypse.   Here's a picture my good friend, Angie O'Neal made for me upon reading this entry:

Next week is our first official appointment with our Midwife.  I started keeping a food log so I could report to her how amazingly awesome my diet has been.  But once I realized how often I was writing "One piece of cake with buttercream frosting", I abandoned the log.  A friend told me about a 25-year-old model client of his who only gained 16 pounds during her pregnancy and now I hate her with a passion that is indescribable.

Our Midwife recommends walking five miles a day in order to facilitate an easier labor.  But seeing as how I'm not completely insane, I'm not walking five miles a day.  At best I'm doing two miles.  I know when Krumholtz is pushing his enormous head through my extremely slender pelvis (I'm so skinny, you guys) I will rue all the days I didn't walk five miles.  But, really, who has time to walk five miles a day when there's all this cake with buttercream frosting to be eaten?

On My Own

My health insurance ran out on December 31st.  The nice lady with Cigna quoted me in the ballpark of $750 a month to maintain my insurance through Cobra for 3 months which wouldn't have gotten me to my due date.  No insurance company will take me because pregnancy is considered a pre-existing condition.  Like cancer.  Not that that matters since I can't afford self-pay coverage anyway.  Any plan I can afford has a deductible so high that if I did find myself in a situation in which I needed to use the health insurance I'd go bankrupt, so, in the end, I don't see the point.

Kurt has insurance through his job as well as USAA insurance because his father was a pilot in the Air Force.  But even if we were married, the cost for dependents on his insurance through work is more than we can fork over and, get this, USAA doesn't offer maternity coverage.  I guess Veterans don't have babies. 

So, yesterday I had the immense pleasure of spending a couple hours at the social services office in Pasadena.  The Pasadena branch was recommended by friends when I told them about my experience at the Wilshire branch at which a lady who looked like this: 

told me that I should arrive at 8am and be prepared to spend the entire day there.  The Pasadena office, my friends assured me, would be much quicker and less painful.  And it was quick, relatively speaking.  Two hours beats a whole day, especially when the bulk of that time will likely be spent waiting on a hard plastic chair in a waiting room filled with screaming babies and generally freaked out people with seemingly no concept of public decorum.  It's not that I expect people to sit quietly with their hands folded in their laps, but listening to music on your phone without headphones (and by "music" I mean something that had some kind of beat and a lot of sounds of gun shots and wolf whistles) or whistling the same two (flat) notes over and over again just seems to me to be, you know, not behavior to engage in in a crowded room filled with stressed out people ready to snap.  Then again, I'm sort of an asshole, so, who knows.

A woman sitting across the aisle from me with an extremely new baby in her arms and a crying infant in a stroller handed the infant AN EMPTY BOTTLE.  I don't mean that there was a little milk or formula in the bottle.  I mean the thing was bone dry.  I don't think the inside of that bottle had EVER seen any kind of liquid.  So, the kid sucks down some air for a minute or so until she realizes nothing is going to come out of that thing and she starts wailing again at which point her mother leans in and says, "WHY ARE YOU STILL CRYING??"

I'm called into the office where I follow a woman through a labyrinth of hallways into a back office.  She sits down across her desk from me, mumbles her name and asks me for my I.D.

She asks me if I have pay stubs from my unemployment insurance.  I explain that there are no pay stubs with unemployment insurance but hand her my latest Notice of Unemployment Insurance Benefits Determination form.  One would think this form would kind of supersede a pay stub as it lists the benefit amount and how much total I will be paid over time in bi-monthly payments.  But, no, they really need pay stubs.

"But there are no pay stubs," I repeat.

"Then what about a bank statement?"  She asks.

"There's no bank statement, either, " I say.  "There's no actual bank account.  I get an EDD debit card.  I withdraw the money from the EDD account and put it in my bank account. . . in cash.  It's a government program.  Kinda like... you know, what you guys provide."

She gives me an open-mouthed, vacant stare.

"Well, hopefully the determination notice you gave will be enough."

"Yes.  Hopefully,"  I sigh.

Shy types what must be an opus into her computer.

"You're getting pregnancy only coverage," she tells me, finally.

"I'd like to get full coverage."

"You don't qualify."

"Pardon?"

"You make too much income."

"I'm on unemployment!"

"The cut off is $1,262 a month," she says.

I don't even know what I can possibly say to this.  This woman doesn't make the rules.  There's no point screaming at her, though that's what I REALLY want to do.  But seriously?  $1262?  What kind of fucking demented douche bag is setting the poverty level?

"So, if I break my arm," I say, as calmly as I possibly can, "I'm not covered?"

"If you get sick beyond the pregnancy, you're not covered."

Sick beyond the pregnancy.

"Who's your O.B.?" She asks.

"I don't have an O.B.  I have a midwife."

"But who's your doctor?"

"I don't have a doctor.  I have a midwife."

"Is that where they have the baby at home?"

".......  I am planning on having the baby at home."

"We don't cover that."

"You don't say."

Someone else comes by to tell me that I have to put my boyfriend on the form if I want to apply for food stamps.  I wasn't going to apply for food stamps, but I'd heard you get a free breast pump if you're on food stamps when you have a baby.  I know immediately Kurt's income will make me ineligible for food stamps.

"But we're not married," I offer.

"It doesn't matter.  You share meals together, right?"

"I mean, yeah."

"So we have to check his income."

"Fine.  I won't apply for food stamps."

The next four forms I sign are for food stamps.

"Why am I signing this if I'm not applying for food stamps?"  I ask.

"It's okay."

"Okay, but this form is for food stamps."

"Yes."

"And I'm not applying for food stamps."

"That's okay."

"Okay.  I've always been told not to sign forms with incorrect information on them."

"This is the form."

I sigh again and sign the form at which point this woman actually says to me, "You seem upset.  Are you okay?"

"No.  I'm not okay.  I'm pissed.  I'm angry at this system."

The next form I sign is a sign stating I've changed my mind about food stamps and am not applying after all.

At the end of this I'm handed a form with a list of things I need to mail in including:

• Proof of rent
• Latest utility bills
• Car registration
• Checking and savings account statements
• The last two pay stubs from unemployment

I didn't bother to state again that there are no pay stubs.  She also hands me a flyer for "Healthy Way L.A."

"You can apply for this to cover other medical issues," she says as she closes the door behind me.

I was so ready to get out of there at that point that I just folded up the flyer and shoved it in my purse.

I call The Actors' Fund to see about getting assistance to pay for Cobra.  If I qualify, I can get a one time grant of $700.  That's more forms and appointments.  I suppose I can reapply for the assistance each month.  I didn't ask. 

I call my parents to fill them in.  My dad says,

"Did you tell the person at The Actors' Fund how much money you've helped raise for them over the years?"

"I don't think that's a factor," I tell him.

I get home and before collapsing for a nap I rummage for the Healthy Way L.A. flyer.  I figure I'll give myself the rest of the day off and call them the next day.  Then I see the following two criteria for eligibility:

• Has a monthly income at or below 133% of the Federal Poverty Level, which in 2011, is $1207 per month for a family of one
• Not pregnant and not eligible for Medi-Cal or Healthy Families

So, that's that.  If I need or want to be transferred to the hospital during labor, Medi-Cal will (I guess) cover that.  But if I get the flu or get hit by a bus, I'm not privileged enough to get affordable health care.

Will someone please explain to me how Canada's health care system is worse than ours.

In other news, here's a recent picture of me watching my dogs eat each other while I wear a t-shirt on my head.

Lastly, if you like this blog, please subscribe, share it with your friends and go here to nominate it for best blog from Parents magazine.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

I've never been a big fan of Christmas.  I suppose this comes as no surprise to those of you who have been following my posts.  I know I have a tendency to come off like a mini Scrooge.  It's just that the idea of forced merriment gives me the willies.  I believe people should be good to each other because of a general sense of humanity not because some dude was born 2000 years ago (and not even in December).  But more than that, I suppose, is that Christmas just happens to come in the midst of the saddest time of year.

Ever since I was a kid, autumn always brought with it depression.  One September in my early twenties, when I still lived in Brooklyn I was walking home from the subway, crunching brown leaves beneath my frozen toes, wondering why I was feeling so blue.  Never mind that I was living with a man I didn't love and had next to nothing in common with except a dog we shared who bit people with no provocation and was a complete cunt.  It was also probably shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.  Sure, anyone would have been feeling blue in my situation, but the point was I always felt that way in the fall.  No matter what was going on in my life.  It's likely I have a mild case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, but on that bitter fall day, after I got home and stood in a hot shower waiting for the searing pain to ebb in my feet (my extremities freeze at the mere mention of cold weather), wondering why my mood always plummeted as September rolled around, it suddenly dawned on me that I was suffering from OhMyGodSchoolIsStartingAgainitis.  I had hated school so much that it took me well into my twenties to stop being gripped with panic and desperation when the leaves started turning.

I want to be crystal clear here.  When I say I hated school I don't mean that homework was a drag and I wished I was outside playing.  I probably would have preferred digging ditches 8 hours a day to going to that   horrible place.  I was short.  I was loud.  I was poor.  (Not much has changed)  I was also weird.  While other girls brought in their pom poms or dolls for Show and Tell, I brought a bag of deer turds I had collected on a hiking trip with my dad.  Any time I raised my hand to answer a question I was the instant subject of ridicule.  I learned very quickly not to answer questions.  Somewhere in grade school I wrote a poem that got chosen by the teachers as a great example of poetry.  It went like this:

In the moonlight it seems to me

That I can see three little angels

And in the moonlight I can not figure out

Why it is not true

Bear in mind my competition was other 8-year-olds...

Having the poem highlighted by my teachers only meant more taunting.  Some author came to speak to our school and I was asked to stand and share my poem in front of everyone.  They might as well have asked me to get naked and slap out the rhythm of Camp Town Lady on my stomach.  I learned very quickly to not do good work.

Besides the verbal abuse, I suffered various forms of physical torment as well.  I was kicked, full force in the vagina with no warning and for no reason by a fellow classmate.  I was pushed in to garbage cans, pinched, chased and generally terrorized.  When I tried to talk to my teachers about the bullying I was told, on several occasions that I was "too sensitive".  It wasn't until I was choked against a file cabinet until I started to pass out that I was taken seriously.  I guess I'm fortunate that kid didn't have access to the gun department at Walmart.

My parents didn't really understand the severity of the bullying, either.  My father told me that boys just teased me because they liked me.  But I saw the way the boys treated the pretty girls.  Danielle and Michelle had perfect, long, straight, beautiful black hair and wore perfume and jean skirts.  While I looked like this:

That's my older sister, Molly.  Please note my belt embroidered with the name Molly on it.  (On a side note: The 1980s can go fuck themselves.)

When my classmates played "Catch and Kiss", Danielle and Michelle got kisses.  I got punches.  If the boys did like me, they had an extraordinarily violent way of expressing it.  I shudder to think how these boys treat their wives and girlfriends.

When I booked my first show in fourth grade, I thought that would finally get my some points with my peers.  I didn't realize that being cast as Tiny Tim actually just added fuel to the fire.  It wasn't until I transferred to a new school for Junior High and won a Tony that people started treating me like I didn't have leprosy.  And this, of course, brings with it a special kind of neurosis that comes with never knowing if someone is friends with you because they actually like you or because they think you're famous.  But by then I had a whole new set of problems and two years later my mother was dead.

So, yeah, I hated school.  And the feeling permeated my life for years. September through March have always been particularly hard months for me.  Add to this the fact that Christmas was not always a happy time of year in the Eagan house.  There were things going on that I'm not really at liberty to share.  Suffice it to say, alcohol was a big part of our lives, as was violence and abuse (not from my parents, mind you).  I liked opening presents, though.  Despite our extremely tight family budget, I always made out like a bandit on Christmas.  My favorite gifts were a small plastic drum set, a chemistry set, a magic set and a build-it-yourself wooden dollhouse (which, incidentally, never got finished).  But the air always felt heavy at Christmastime.  After my mother died, of course, it just got worse.  I dreaded Christmas.  Except for the break it gave me from school, I really just wanted the holidays to pass quickly and without incident.

We always put blue lights on the Christmas tree which added to the general feeling of sadness.  When I would come downstairs in the middle of the night, all the lights in the house would be out except for the lights in the tree.  It always made me feel sad yet oddly comforted.  I still have a fondness for blue Christmas lights nestled in a green tree though, and when I do get a tree, I insist on blue lights.  Here is a crappy picture of our tree this year:

Kurt decorating our tree in front of the Yule Log show available on Netflix streaming.  Episode 2 features bad renditions on Holiday songs!

Which, I suppose, brings me into the present.  While I do still tend to feel extra blue during the holidays, this year I was given the best present of all.  Last week we went in for our 20 week scan and got a perfect report card.  Krumholtz is developing perfectly.  All his/her limbs are in the right place and normal.  His/her spine is straight and healthy.  There is plenty of amniotic fluid and my placenta is in the right place.  My cervix is closed tight, so the chance for early delivery is very, very slim.  The doctor said we could not have asked for better results.  Turns out, if you're going to have a baby you completely didn't plan on and are not ready for, a clean bill of prenatal health is a huge relief and a true gift.  Here is a picture of Mrs. Krumholtz Buderman:   

As you can see, I will be giving birth to an alien jellyfish!

Besides this news, the best present I got this year is a dishtowel that came from my friend Angie.  

And it is with that that I bid you all the happiest and healthiest of new years!