really?....no, REALLY??

I haven't posted much lately because....well, life I suppose. But that doesn't mean things haven't been happening. As always, I bow to my wife's superior blogging for you to go and get the full scoop on this particular facet of our son's death.

I know I said a long time ago that Joel's story is not over, but I didn't think it would be quite like this.

I will always sing the praises of the nursing staff in the OB/ Delivery dept. where Joel was born, but to the hospital as a whole, I submitted this letter.

To the Entire Staff of PVH, Five months ago I sat in the backseat of my car, comforting my 15-month old son (he used to hate car rides) while my wife drove us all to your hospital. She made this 45 mile drive from Huntington knowing that when she arrived at your hospital she would be delivering our second son, dead from her womb at 41 weeks.

In that alone it was a traumatizing experience to my wife and my family; we will never be the same. We came to your hospital on recommendations, that we would be treated well, and all in all we were.

She endured hours of waiting with our dead son inside of her, ultrasounds, without me by her side, looking at our dead son, and even more hours of excruciating labor, lying in a hospital bed, knowing the only relief from the pain would be when she could finally see and hold our dead son -- hardly a relief.

Not knowing how our son died, we agreed to an autopsy, no matter the cost, but were informed we could submit it to insurance for possible reimbursement. We didn't think much of it at the time, but it was at least some reassurance for a paycheck-to-paycheck family that had just lost their beautiful baby boy.

Five months have now passed; constantly painful, but with small moments of progress. Unfortunately, the business side of death has always been willing to rip our wounds open again. Do you know how many people you have to talk to to try and claim your stillborn son's autopsy on insurance? How many times you have to describe what happened, over and over again, reliving it each time, just to get to the person that can explain the process? When my wife eventually found out that all we had to do was get a bill/invoice from the pleasant hospital that had treated us so well, we actually weren't that worried. We paid you 2800 dollars for it, we got a simple receipt, but surely a bill with a medical code could be pulled up. No, it can't. This is what my wife has been told by your hospital over and over and over again:

You have no idea, or you can't help...try this number so you can get the same answers.

For months now she has tried to get help from your hospital, from VPs down to simple clerks, and theres been NOTHING. Today we were told that "DOAs" aren't charged for autopsies, and that our son would count as DOA. Is this why you can't help us? Because your hospital cheated us out of 2800 when our son was dead? We honestly don't mind having paid for the autopsy, because we wanted it, but turning around and not helping us to submit it to our insurance, because its something you don't usually charge for...well thats just cheating, isnt it?

We gave our son to you. We let you wheel him off on a cart, knowing that some stranger, not his parents, but a stranger would be the last person to see him whole, and in that moment your hospital took the opportunity to swindle us out of money?

If you're actually feeling bad about your hospital's mistake, then go find a way to make that bill, so we can fight with our insurance company for 5 more months just to get a small portion paid back to us, or own up to the mistake and let our credit card company know that it was an invalid charge. Thank you, me

(Okay, so I signed my name, but for some reason I feel compelled to keep the oh so thin veil of privacy I keep here at ye old blog)

Stay tuned for more on this, and probably plenty more.

Upcoming: Orion