Creative ways you're paying for a homebirth? -- Update #10! We might actually swing it!

[jenfl]

Who else out there has insurance that won't cover a homebirth and can't pay for it out of pocket?

What creative ways are you coming up with to pay for it? HSA? Fund-raising party? I'd love to hear suggestions and details.

[DoulaAlicia]

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[rollergirl]

well, i might bake a ton and ask friends if they want to donate anything to bake and we'll have a bake sale and get a party ball or something and charge for cups... although... i think the beer plan would work a lot better in the summer.

obviously a yard sale would be a great idea, but we really pared down A LOT when we moved. so there's not much to sell anymore.

but then again, maybe we'll make a big dinner of something cheap-but delicious like pasta with homemade tomato sauce and some kind of delicious veggies and cake for dessert and charge $20/family to come eat (none of our friends here have kids big enough to eat much yet).

if i were crafty, i would start making some cute things to sell.

maybe join up with a local group who does homebirth or midwife support -- or there is one homebirth midwife in our area who does work in africa -- and offer to do a fundraiser for them and myself and then we'd split the proceeds (and this would be on all the literature/postings for attendees). i feel like we'd get lots more folks at a big event like this than just something for myself. maybe asks the grandmas and other folks we know who are crafty to donate one thing for a raffle and also have a 50/50.

keep a sharp eye out at yard sales for anything that might go for a good price as a resale on ebay

start teaching my damn childbirth classes already.

and we have been putting $$ into savings for about a year now, but it would be nice to be able to put some $$ back. and we'll do a couple of these, so no one event has to be a big time consumer and it doesn't mean if it isn't huge we are totally done for.

anyone else! i am pretty sure that any and all ideas would help us out-of-pocketers!

we expect to pay $3200-3800 and dont' expect to be reimbursed by my insurance for the prenatal visits (aren't even going to try for the birth, but MAYBE we'll get lucky on the prenatal visits).

[jenfl]

Wow, rollergirl, you guys have been thinking about this for a while, huh?!

I'd also thought of selling crafty items, but I tried that last fall and failed miserably. My area is pretty mainstream, so when I showed up at the craft fair with felt food picnics and felt crowns and wooden rocketships and UFOs... I got weird looks and no customers.

I'm also not sure how'd I'd make enough inventory to make a dent in the cost (taking buying materials into account).

But I love how you're thinking of spreading the cost out in all these little ways. That makes it a lot less daunting. Maybe I can come up with a number of small ideas before Christmas and people are looking for gifty things....

Are you a trained childbirth educator? I'd thought of doing Bradley, but didn't see a lot of income potential after the cost of training and books. What route did you go?

[rollergirl]

oh yes i forgot! ask for $$ for all your birthdays and holidays when people ask what you are looking for! and if anything asks what you need for the new baby -- say $$ towards the homebirth.

and have you tried selling your crafts on etsy.com or ebay? 'cause you might make a few dollars that way for all your hard work, and you can compare what others are selling their stuff for to get an idea of what you would think is fair. and you'll reach so many more folks that way than just your boring old craft fair folks who clearly don't appreciate your style!

i just finished my certification with ALACE.org (which is now international birth and wellness project). it cost $800, i think. it took me about 18 months, but you could probably do it in about a year. i hope to teach an 8 wk course that meets 2 1/2 h/class (once a week) for $300 per couple. and that covers the space i rent, handouts, and their manuals. so i *might* bring in about $150-200 couple. so if i teach 4 couples every two months, that's only about $400/month i'll be bringing in at first. but even so, if i teach 3 classes between now and birth, that's $1200. not too shabby.

and heck yea, i've been thinking about this A LOT we've been wanting to be pregnant for over a year, so we've had a lot of time to save/fantasize/plan!

[rollergirl]

oh just thought of another fun one -- if you know a local community space with a big room, host a "baby loves dancing" party (google them if you don't know the group). well and don't actaully call it baby loves dancing. but yea -- easy to do, make a music list for the kids, have some snacks, and maybe a keg of decent beer and charge $3/cup or something and play fun dancing music for 2-3 hours for the kids. have a bunch of balloons to kick around, christmas lights (colored probably, blinking maybe), and then party. people pay $15/person for walkers (so all adults plus any non crawling kids) at these things, but you could probably get away with charging $5-10 and crawlers and babes in arms are free. and if the community space doesn't want you to rent their space for free, maybe work with them to have a fundraiser for you AND some cause of theirs and split the proceeds however you can agree on (but i wouldn't take less than 30-40% if you are doing all the work.

[aylaanne]

Originally Posted by jenfl

I'd thought of doing Bradley, but didn't see a lot of income potential after the cost of training and books. What route did you go?

I would do Bradley if I could afford to do it and if they would have a training close enough to me. The biggest deterrent for me is the cost of putting myself up during the training. The income potential isn't huge, but it's not insignificant. I paid $200 for my 3-week advanced class when I was pregnant with DS, and my teacher charged $350/couple for the 12 week course. So, if she runs 4 courses a year, with six couples in each course, that's $8400 a year, just from teaching a one hour course once a week. If you do two courses at a time, say one on Wednesday night and one on Saturday afternoon, then you can double your potential. And you can also offer non-traditional classes like my instructor did.

There are no Bradley instructors in my area, so I ended up driving over an hour each way for my three classes, which is why my teacher offered the non-traditional course. I'm also pretty savvy, so it was okay that we skipped over some things.

As for my homebirth, I plan on taking out an FSA with my job, and putting $4k into it. It will cut into my already-hurting paycheck, but after the baby's born I'll have to change my insurance anyways, so I might not notice. My midwives will work with me to bill in such a way that I'll be able to be reimbursed. They may even pseudo-bill me, so that I can submit for reimbursement instead of actually paying them, and then just pay them with the reimbursement. They have a very nice billing service that I can work with.

Last time, we submitted the homebirth charges to our (different) insurance company, and we ended up getting reimbursed 100%. They didn't cover homebirth, but they did cover licensed midwife care, and my midwife was licensed. There was some trickiness over my transfer, but we got it all sorted out. I have an HMO this time, so there's no way I'm getting them to cover anything, but they'll cover my backup 100%, and if I need to transfer again, I won't have to worry about the huge bill that I got last time.

[lurve]

i just cashed out a 401k plan. not creative i know. but no real choice either. and well worth it!

[MommyMarshall]

This isn't creative either but we always use our tax return

[jenfl]

Omg omg omg omg

OMG. So, we'd given up on the homebirth idea. $4k just wasn't happening, and with a birth center covered by our insurance in the next town over, we couldn't justify it.

So I had an appointment with the birth center, which went ok... midwife was nice, but the office staff and general environment wasn't great. And it turns out that "covered by insurance" still means we'd pay $600 out of pocket!

I was spending my showers running through logistics in my head -- my first labor was 3-4 hours, so #2 could happen super fast and there's an awful lot of pieces that have to move into the correct place (getting me to the birth center, getting DD to my parents, getting DH home if he's working at the hospital an hour away...).

I was talking to DD in front of DH, answering her questions about how the birth would happen (you'll go with Nana and Pop-pop when Mommy goes to the birth center, they'll bring you by, maybe you can stay with them afterward....). DH gets this far-away look and then leaves the room to start digging around in our paperwork stash.

I find him running numbers and a tax estimator on the computer. He thinks that between our tax refund and some extra hours he was planning on picking up, we can swing the homebirth!!! He just feels like the first one was so wonderful and it's such an important thing to us, that we should go all-out and really try to make it happen!!!

So I called the homebirth midwife, who says that she still has room for me... I asked for a week to make sure we can get finances in place before we commit.

But I think it might happen! I'm so happy and relieved! I was stressing out already about how to make the dash to the birth center happen, and I can't imagine how tense that would make me in labor to have to coordinate everything (I'm not good at letting that sort of thing go ).

So.... it's still going to be a huge stretch, especially because most of that "extra hours" money is earmarked for other big expenses coming up. I'm still trying to come up with ideas of how to bring in a few extra dollars to help out.

I like to bake (when I'm not in the middle of morning sickness)... wondering if I can think of anywhere that would let me sell some cupcakes or something? If I sell at a local craft fair, are there health inspection requirements?

Another thought... maybe wrapping Christmas presents for people? Even storing them and delivering them in the days before Christmas?

Hmm... wonder if I could sell homemade pies to people in the neighborhood around Thanksgiving....?

So many things to think about!!

[rhiOrion]

I think wrapping and storing christmas presents would be a pretty cool idea! Think of all the nosy kids who would NEVER be able to figure out where their parents hid the presents!

[leavemealone]

My insurance will reimburse, but we have to pay upfront. For my birth last Dec, I had stashed away a couple hundred dollars beforehand in a jar and put any little amount of money I had in that jar. I'd empty my wallet of change every so often. I'd stash away any money I found in the laundry. I was working at the time and every time I was tempted to go to the vending machine, I'd stop and think if I really wanted that candy bar or did I want to put the money towards my birth. Almost every time, the money went in the jar. It was only $1 at a time, but doing things like that did add up. I also have some stock and whenever I'd get dividend checks, I'd cash them and put the money in the jar. However, the biggest chunk I had came from the stimulus checks that were sent out last spring.

This time, if I decide on a home birth, I will probably need to get a seasonal job at the holidays to pay for it (or at least get money to put towards it even if it doesn't cover it all). I may end up with a hospital birth b/c insurance will cover almost all of it (no maternity deductible and 100% coverage in network). I don't know about how the dr fee is covered, though. There may be a small percentage for that, but I'm not sure.

[justamama]

My mw is doing our birth "pro bono" lol. She missed our youngest's birth and felt bad and wants to make up for it. She will be getting a few massages out of the deal (I was in massage school at one point before wrist problems caused me to have to leave), and once I find a job we are still giving her what we can. We're also donating items to her fundraisers and plan on sending her home from each appointment with home baked goodies. She's very open to bartering and won't turn away a client for lack of funds. Which is a Godsend for us since we seem to fall into one financial crisis after another!!!

[karen1968]

About the most creative thing I've thought of so far is asking family members (my dad and sister, specificall) to help out. They have the means and have offered money for other things (which we usually turn down). We DO have the money in savings, but we hate to touch that emergency fund.

[ErikaLeigh]

[QUOTE=jenfl;14332850]Another thought... maybe wrapping Christmas presents for people? Even storing them and delivering them in the days before Christmas?
QUOTE]

I wanted to say that your entire post is great! But this in particular is great!! GL!