Insurance Trouble

It's still not over. After the last phone conversation with insurance, they've still denied every claim having anything to do with Jasper's birth. So now, we have to do a written appeal. Roar!

The good thing: we kept track of every person we spoke with, what they said, and fought the hard battle to get everything in writing. If we hadn't done this, we'd be a lost cause. For now, we can keep fighting with our heads up.

Morals of the story:
Births are expensive. Save your money, and expect it to cost you more than "they" say it will. If you even think of non-trad births (we used a birthing center with midwives instead of a hospital) expect them to really fight you. (Our benefits say in-network midwives are covered 100%, and then don't include ANY midwives in the entire state of Oregon in their network.)
Get EVERYTHING pre-authorized by insurance IN WRITING. Even if you do (and we did) they may still try to stick you for things they said they would cover. (In our case, the cost of the entire birth.)
Use your benefits person at work. The insurance company may treat you better if there's threat over losing your entire company's business. Your benefits person should also know the right people to talk to for getting results.
Don't be afraid to go to the insurance commissioner. We couldn't do this effectively because our insurance company is not based in the same state as our service, so we'll unfortunately have to go to a federal level with this (read, less likely to get positive results).