Personal experience. How I came to give birth in the United States. Part of xnumx

Фото: Depositphotos

Childbirth in the USA becomes more popular among residents of the CIS, the worse the political and economic situation in these countries. In the United States, both stars and ordinary couples want to give birth, realizing that the game is worth the candle - American citizenship in the future can open many doors for a child. The most popular city where Russian-speaking people come to give birth is picturesque Miami. ForumDaily anonymously recorded the story of a woman who came to give birth in the USA on a tourist visa. Next, we offer her speech in the first person.

History in brief

To give birth in the USA?

Yes, probably, many dream about it.

I never thought about giving birth in America and, especially, about moving to the USA. However, as they say, we assume, but God disposes ...

The good news found us at home in Ukraine, where we returned after spending six months in hot Sri Lanka. A pregnancy test, confirmation from a doctor - and now we are starting to plan a better life for us and our future baby. For some reason I was sure it would be a boy. And so it happened.

The husband suggested combining his old dream of traveling to the USA with the emergence of a new life in a country where a child is given citizenship by birth. I Googled this question and found several other decent countries with a similar law - we began to choose between the USA, Canada and - suddenly! - Brazil. By the way, a Brazilian passport is considered one of the best for life, on a par with an American one, and the parents of a young citizen receive citizenship in 2-3 years. Canada was no longer due to the complexity of the process, Brazil seemed to us to be an overly adventurous option, and, as a result, we applied for a tourist visa in the United States.

A week later we had an interview, which, to our great surprise, we passed. To understand, before this my husband was denied a visa three times, and I was denied once. To everyone who does not believe that you can apply and fill out a visa application yourself, without the services of an agency, I want to say that we did everything ourselves.

In which city will we give birth? In Miami, this was the only point that we definitely decided on. We decided to think about the doctor and the clinic later.

With our foreign countries holding the coveted B1/B2 visas, we went to Moscow to carry out the project and earn money (we were organizing events). They didn’t tell anyone about their plans. Bye. At that time, I didn’t take the move very seriously, because the information on the Internet about the cost of childbirth made the hair on my head stand up: 20-30-40 thousand dollars. But we are ordinary young guys who no one helps.

To find out firsthand, I contacted my former client, who has US citizenship and gave birth to two children there. Oh, she will definitely calm me down and say that everything is much cheaper, I hoped. This was not the case - the woman called even more ambitious figures and did not recommend it at all to risk without money.

But her husband accidentally met at work with a wealthy man, who, as it turned out, his wife gave birth to two children in Miami. And not for 20 or 30 thousands, but for only 7000. Moreover, the second child gave birth at all for free under the program Medicaid. Then we met with other couples who did not pay big money and were satisfied with everything.

What is the catch? As far as I understood, stories about the overpayment of childbirth appear because of:

• bills from the hospital for insurance companies
• services of intermediary companies
• births that have passed with complications.

Accounts for insurance usually many times exceed hospital checks for cash payments, intermediaries in the US really ask for amounts ranging from 10 to 40 thousand dollars, but this cost, in addition to paying for deliveries, usually includes other services - from meeting at the airport and renting an apartment to a personal driver and escort while shopping. Childbirth with complications, and the truth, can result in any amount with 4 and 5 zeros.

But this did not frighten us either (and maybe we were not in ourselves). When we slowly began to talk about their plans to friends, most of them dissuaded us. Positively, only the doctor, whom I observed in Moscow, reacted to our idea. By the way, I did not translate any documents from the hospital (ultrasound, tests) for the United States.

Our arrival in the USA

In early August last year, terribly tired after the project, we flew to the United States. With us, we had 11 thousand dollars for everything. Considering that initially we wanted to give birth for money and did not consider other options, the idea was, indeed, risky. After all, the first months in the new state are always the most expensive: renting an apartment (in the case of the USA, three payments at a time at a minimum), car rental (because without it there is nowhere, especially in Miami in the summer with + 40), but also childbirth. Wow, everything is not easy!

I was six months pregnant - with a small, neat belly. For the trip I chose a long, loose dress, raising the hem of which could slightly hide my position. Yes, we were worried about unnecessary questions at the border, because at the interview in Kyiv they said that we were flying to a wedding with friends and would return in two weeks.

Just in case, we had in store the answers to all the questions - why are we so pregnant, where do we want to give birth and from whom? that we are aware of all prices and even know the address of the hospital by heart. The customs officer at the sight of us had only one question - the purpose of the visit, to which we cheerfully answered "tourism" and, having received the cherished daggers in passports, we hurried to the exit.

Subsequently, we were often asked why we decided to go to Miami and not to Chicago or New York, where the largest diasporas of Russian speakers are located. We had one answer to this - climate. We had already spent one winter in Sri Lanka and no longer wanted to experience any form of cold.

Normal people prefer to go to a particular place, to rent an apartment in advance. We went completely and completely to nowhere, which increased our expenses for a certain amount, because while we were looking for an apartment, we had to live in a hotel.

In Miami, we were met by a guy whom we didn’t really know. He was familiar to her husband's mother, and she brought us together. He helped us settle in a motel, brought up to date, told us where he was. And we fell into a dream.

From that very moment, our search began for an apartment: we looked in profile groups of social networks like Russian Miami and in local Russian magazines, which are distributed in Russian supermarkets, once went to the US real estate agency.

The main difficulty was that all the houses in Miami have their own associations (like an organizing committee consisting of residents of the house), which should check your credit and criminal history and, based on them, decide whether to allow you to live in this house or not. Plus - you can rent an apartment for at least six months, and you need to make 3 payments at once (two of which are a deposit and payment for the last month). We didn’t yet have the stories we needed, much less the time.

We were lucky, and three days later we found a realtor who showed us an apartment in Hollywood, where we moved in the next morning. The apartments belonged to the Russians and settled us as their relatives, without any documents or checks. Personally, I do not recommend anyone to do that, because sooner or later you may have problems. We had them, but this is a completely different story.

How are birth in the US

When the issue with the apartment was closed, and my husband began to look for work, I began to study the hospitals and doctors. The forum helped me a lot deliveryinusa about childbirth in the United States without intermediaries, which I learned from and to.

The system of observation and delivery in the USA (and even more so payment for delivery) is not similar to the CIS: you choose a doctor, conclude an agreement with him for observation and delivery, and on the day of birth he arrives at any hospital where he is accredited. A separate contract is concluded with the hospital. It is also necessary to pay everything separately: the doctor’s services, the time of stay in the hospital and all the services rendered; epidural anesthesia, neonatologist and visits to the pediatrician.

The great difference between the medical care system in the United States and Russia or Ukraine - here you are first provided with assistance on the highest level, and then billed. In an emergency. This is both bad and good at the same time: they will cure you, but you can very seriously get into the money, as you would say in my homeland.

Therefore, in all medical institutions, be it a hospital or a doctor's office, there is a price and such a thing as a contract. It is very easy to find out the prices for everything, even if in English you can only say hello and how much. The cost of delivery in the hospital can be found in the financial department of the hospital, doctor services - by phone in his office. Usually you are offered a price and description of the service.

For example, regular deliveries at Memorial Regional Hospital (Hollywood, Florida) cost $ 3500 (included 2 of the day at the hospital), and caesarean costs $ 4500 (included at the 3 of the day at the hospital). I'm talking about childbirth without complications. There are no 30 000 here and there. If you did not enter into an agreement with a doctor, but arrived at the hospital on the day of birth, then the doctor on duty will take you and you will not need to pay extra. Anesthesia costs about $ 1200 and can be asked at any stage of labor. The services of obstetrician gynecologists vary greatly in price: on average, from $ 3000 to $ 11 000 for childbirth and observation. Russian-speaking doctors, as a rule, expose the highest price tag.

Some doctors offer a package: observation and delivery, hospital, anesthesia and several pediatric appointments. At the same time, bills from all institutions are sent personally to the doctor, and he pays them himself from the amount that you paid him. A similar practice is practiced by the popular Egyptian doctor in Miami, Matar Nabil, whose clients we became. The cost of the package as of September 2015 was $7200, of which $3500 was for doctor services, $2500 was the cost of two days at North Jackson Hospital, $800 was for epidural anesthesia, and $400 was for two visits with a pediatrician. It is convenient to conclude an agreement with one person who will take control of everything.

Paid childbirth is not the only option that is possible for non-residents of America. You can give birth in the United States almost free of charge or conditionally free insurance for low-income Medicaid or Medicaid Emergency. Yes, even if you are in the USA on a tourist visa. I am only talking about Florida, because this insurance in each state works in its own way. Although the question of the legality of this method remains open.

I knew guys who gave birth this way, and everything went well, but I myself was categorically against it. Because if you don’t pay, then someone will pay for you. And that “someone” is US taxpayers. However, in fact, you are not deceiving anyone, because you are submitting your actual documents for insurance, and there they are already deciding whether or not to provide it to you.

Nevertheless, we went to the doctor Matar Nabil for the first meeting and signed a verbal agreement with him before paying for the contract. To meet a doctor in Miami, there is a free Meet & Greet consultation, where you can meet a specialist, ask your questions, assess how comfortable you are with this person.

We were captivated by the reviews on the forums about Matara, and we stayed with him. A few weeks later we arrived for the first inspection. The doctor gave me an ultrasound and took tests. We didn’t sign an agreement; they didn’t have one in their office. The only piece of paper you receive is a check after full payment of the contract. I didn’t like this moment, as well as the fact that you, as a client, are not provided with the doctor’s personal phone number. All records and questions can only be made on the general telephone number, where Matara’s assistants receive calls.

If you are having a normal pregnancy, this is not a problem, but what to do if something went wrong and you need urgent advice from your doctor?

Before 36 weeks I went to the doctor's office every 2 weeks, after 36 - every week. Every visit they took my urine for tests and listened to the baby’s heartbeat using a Doppler. All this time we were waiting for a money transfer to our American account from Ukraine and expected to immediately send this money to the doctor.

At one point, the situation changed dramatically, and our paid delivery was a big question.

Read the story on ForumDaily next week.

See also:

Childbirth in Miami: how Russian-speaking people come to the United States for citizenship

Obama has given the poor a discount on diapers

One and a half thousand Russian-speaking clients are under investigation in the Medicaid case