Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - The Hidden Cost of Miscarriage

Episode Date: May 7, 2022

Originally aired on May 10, 2021. Miscarriage leave is the kind of leave no one ever wants to have to take. But nevertheless, it’s the kind of leave that must exist. In today’s episode, Nicole opens up for the first time about her own miscarriage and sits down with writer Ayana Lage for a deep dive into the financial costs of miscarriage that no one is talking about. Sign Nicole’s miscarriage leave petition here: https://www.change.org/p/businesses-companies-need-to-have-miscarriage-leave Read Ayana’s piece here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2019/12/11/hidden-financial-toll-having-miscarriage/ Find more of Ayana’s work here: https://ayanalage.com/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Well, it doesn't. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. To all of you beautiful mama money rehabbers out there, I hope you had a very wonderful Mother's Day.

Nobody deserves their own special day more than mothers out there. I felt so much joy on one hand for so many people in my life who celebrated Mother's Day with their loved ones, and I was looking at my Instagram timeline filled up with baby photos and family photos. And at the same time, I also felt heartache. For some of us, Mother's Day is a reminder of loss. Loss of a mother, loss of a child, or maybe loss of the ability to have a child. And it can be very triggering. I was mourning my own loss this Mother's Day. A few weeks ago, I had a miscarriage.

So far, I've only told my close circle of friends, and I've been keeping this close to my chest. When my life feels like it's spinning out of control, I try to regain it by getting as much information as I can. Because information is power, right? I try to regain it by getting as much information as I can. Because information is power, right? So in my attempt to make sense of what was happening to me, I found all sorts of stories and people and statistics that showed me how taking time off for miscarriage can cost women their jobs. I recorded this episode right after it happened,

and I've been going back and forth about whether or not to publish it. I know that there are some people out there who are hurting too, so I want to publish it for you. Lastly, before I start the episode, I just want to give you a heads up that this episode deals with raw stories of miscarriage, so please take care when listening. My partner and I were expecting our first child. We were both really excited. We both made plans. We picked out names. We touched my belly every morning and every night with joy. But I recently had a miscarriage and it got me thinking, of course, through my own grief and heartbreak, how this is secretly one of the most important money and financial issues we should be talking about but aren't. What I realized is that being able to take the day off as soon as I

experienced what would undoubtedly be one of the most horrific moments of my life and what felt like a betrayal of my body. My partner took the day off to be with me. And during that time, it became clear to me how lucky I was to be able to do that. You know, all of the feelings, grief, heartbreak, and gratitude, and so many more can and do coexist. And I feel so grateful for the freedom to give myself the time and the space that my miscarriage deserved. That freedom comes from the working for myself and not living paycheck to paycheck anymore. It comes from having enough savings in the bank to not worry about anything except for how my body felt and how I was possibly going to work up the courage to cancel my upcoming prenatal ultrasound appointments. Those things that I'm grateful for, the basics, the ability

to grieve, the ability to allow myself grace in my recovery should be a given, though, for the approximately 20% of women who experience miscarriage after they know they're pregnant. But that is far from the reality for so many women. Of the 43% of Americans who say they live paycheck to paycheck, 85% are women. And of the 30% of Americans who earn minimum wage, 66% are women. Women are more likely to work in lower income jobs than men, which means their schedules are more erratic. Their hours are a necessity to feed their family, to put not just two meals, but three meals on the table. So time off just isn't an option. Time off is money. Very few companies offer miscarriage leave. Paid time off is something

they're just not incentivized to do because they perceive it as a cost, both in dollars and productivity, which I would argue the cost of human capital is far greater by not giving miscarriage leave. Meanwhile, unpaid time off for pregnancy loss is simply something most women cannot electively do. And even though I've been a champion for women's voices in economic issues for more than a decade. I couldn't have imagined that miscarriage would actually be one of those issues until I experienced it firsthand. My emotional experience isn't rare, but my ability to take time off to recover from my miscarriage is, and the ability to do so is an unexpected side effect, I believe, of a broken financial system. It's exceedingly rare to have a clear and specific policy in place. New Zealand recently approved three days of paid

leave after pregnancy loss, and I think companies can and should create their own policies. As I was looking into this more and as I was trying to educate myself as to why this doesn't exist, I found a beautiful article on the Washington Post. It's called The Hidden Financial Tool of Having a Miscarriage. And it's written by a woman named Ayana. So I invited her on the show. She is here with us now. Ayanna, thank you so much for joining Money Rehab. It is so good to be here. So thank you so much for inviting me. Last week, I had a miscarriage and so I started looking into why miscarriage leave doesn't exist. And I started looking into the financial aspect of it. And that's where I came across your beautiful, beautiful article. And I

was so struck by how you really talked about this financial aspect to it. Of course, you know, it's emotional as well. Can you tell me a little bit about your story? Yeah, of course. And I'm so sorry for your loss, especially with it being so recent. I know just how raw the pain is. So I'm so sorry. I found out that I was pregnant in April 2019. And we were kind of at the place in life where we were like open to a baby, but not aggressively trying. I know that planning for your first pregnancy too is probably really scary from a financial perspective. What were you guys thinking when you first found out? Yeah. So I just quit my job to become a full-time freelancer. And I do think that in the very early days, I was very excited, but also very nervous because I was

like, I don't think I'm going to have enough money to pay for maternity leave. I wanted to wait until we were like more established. You know, I was kind of like, okay, if I'm a year into this or a couple of years into this, that would be different. But we'd also just bought a house. So there's like a lot going on. But I mean, we kind of started to just tentatively like set money aside, think about things for the nursery, like order clothes. But honestly, I think we were just like going to take this as it comes and kind of try to figure it out as we go. So then at seven or eight weeks pregnant, my husband and I heard a heartbeat and we were like over the moon and asked our doctor, like, what would you say is the safe point to share? And she said, some people say 12 weeks, but once you

hear a heartbeat, the risk is down to around 2%. So we legitimately were like, okay, those are good odds. And I just felt like I'm ready to share this experience with everyone. And we were just kind of like in this really, really special and happy time. Near the end of the first trimester, I went in for them to find the baby's heartbeat and they couldn't. Like I was panicked and they said that it was fine. We would just do an ultrasound, whatever. So we do the ultrasound. We see the baby moving, all of this. I feel really encouraged. And at the end of that appointment, the doctor who I really hadn't met at that point, I was dealing with midwives, came into the room and said that he needed to see me. And he said that there was, I think he called it an area of concern near the

baby's head. He said, it could be nothing. It could be something really bad, but we're just going to transfer you. Statistically, it's probably nothing. They prepared us to meet with a genetic counselor and they were kind of like, we expect some complications in this pregnancy, but we don't know how serious they are yet. They did an ultrasound and I was talking to my husband and the nurse said, I need to get the doctor. I'll be right back. And I saw the look on her face and I was like, something's very wrong. And then a bit of time passed, she came back and said, you know, there's no heartbeat. We need to move forward with a DNC. So a DNC is the vaginal surgery where they are able to then like go in and do what they need to do. That was what was recommended to me just because taking medication

may not have been effective. And then you got home and were you able to take time to recover? Kind of, but I mean, I also was faced with the perspective of just having started my own business. And yes, sure, I would have been able to find money. I was never worried that I won't pay my bills if I don't work, which was a very privileged position to be in. But I also was like, I do need to make money. So yeah, I mean, I definitely didn't take any sort of official leave. I think I jumped back into work pretty soon and was just kind of like in a fog for a while. And then the medical bills, it sounds like, started to arrive. Yeah. So I knew that pregnancy was very expensive. I'd heard friends complain about like medical debt after giving

birth. But it had never occurred to me that you could experience a lot of the same costs with no baby at the end. You know, because I'd always thought like, if I go through this physical pain, if I go through this financial struggle, but I have my baby, you know, it feels worth it. And I now have the comparison point of having an eight month old and having a lot of difficulties in the past few months. But like, if this is what it took to get her, then like, you know, whatever. But at the time, yeah, I mean, with my first pregnancy, I guess on a logical level, I should have known that

my health insurance may not cover everything, but I was very unprepared. I used to dread going to the mailbox because once the bills started arriving, it felt like they didn't stop. And what were those bills? Can you break down some of the costs? Yeah. For anesthesiology for the DNC, it was $1,400. That was honestly the most upsetting bill to me because we paid it for a long time. I got charges from my doctor's office for all of the ultrasounds and all of the testing that they did. The ultrasound with the specialist that found no heartbeat was several hundred dollars. And genetic testing was, I don't remember how much, maybe a thousand dollars.

Some of the bills I didn't even understand because like it wasn't like, which I guess anyone who's dealt with medical billing knows, especially after like a major health experience or complication, there were bills for like blood work that I didn't remember getting. A lot of this stuff happened like before or after the surgery. So I very much realized that when I said that I wanted a DNC, which was being recommended to me and felt like the best way to move forward emotionally, that I was also signing up for thousands of dollars in medical bills, which I clearly didn't know at the time. Because that's the last thing you're thinking about. Right.

Why would you be? What did all of these bills amount to? You know, we were able to argue some of them down. And insurance, we were able to kind of find insurance on some of them. But I mean, I think that we ended up spending like $3,500 to $4,000 out of pocket over the course of about a year and a half because any of the bills that we could make monthly, we did. I'm also very proud of you for negotiating your medical debt. How did that go? Yeah. Well, so it was really difficult because I think that at one point I remember I was like in the car on the phone with, it might've been the anesthesiologist's office because

they were not, they were like, this is how much you're paying. And I just remember like saying to the representative who, I mean, obviously it's not her fault, but I was like, I didn't ask for any of this. I said, this wasn't a planned medical procedure. This wasn't a situation where I realized that I had a health problem and then like tried to like evaluate my options, get a second opinion, figure out what to do. Like this was an emergency that I did not ask for. And so honestly, I didn't negotiate as much as I would for like, say my daughter's birth, because it was such an emotional experience and like trying to explain again and again, like what happened, why I was being billed, why I thought that I shouldn't be billed. It, it took a lot out of me. Understandably. I've heard from so many women who had like very similar stories, including one who told me that her miscarriage ended up costing her significantly

more than giving birth to like a healthy child, which I think is wild. I think it's definitely more common than we realize and just not something that is talked about often. We don't talk about pregnancy in the first trimester solely for the reason that there could be a miscarriage, which when that happens makes it just more isolating, I found. But you kind of defied convention there and talked about it earlier on social media. Was that a conscious choice? Because I feel like if we're going to talk about this, like we should talk about it from the get-go because then people didn't even know I was pregnant. And then I just felt even more alone. Why do we have this construct in society that we can't talk about pregnancy in the first three months? Because there might be a miscarriage. And when that happens,

in the first three months because there might be a miscarriage. And when that happens, nobody knows. And your support system is confused. And your employer probably can't come out and help you in the same way as if they had already known. I mean, I think that this is a really, really good question because I wrestled with it. I think that it depends. I think that if you are not someone who shares your life publicly or is comfortable being open with a lot of people or hearing from a lot of people when you're sharing this story, then it's like maybe you do want to keep it to like your closest friends or your partner or whatever it is.

Like it's whatever you're comfortable with. But I mean, I found it's kind of what you're saying that I found that because everyone was kind of like benefit downside, I don't know, but everyone knew that I was pregnant. And, you know, I got some really insensitive comments from people, but in general, people were over, they were overwhelmingly supportive. We were waiting at the hospital for a long time. I texted friends and we literally got home to like food delivery and flowers and gift cards, like on our doorstep, just because we're lucky

to have that. And I think that for me, at least it would have been a very different experience to say I was pregnant. I'm not anymore. And it's just difficult to navigate. You know, I think that it just depends, but I agree with you that there should not be shame in a woman announcing like whenever she wants to. I think that's such an individual decision to make. I think that's right. What kind of mean comments did you get and where do those people live and how can I go punch them in the face? You know, I can't say, I shouldn't say mean comments because it wasn't, no, I got some troll comments once I started sharing, which was like, whatever that happens

when you're a woman online. But, you know, from people who are well-meaning, I think I got a lot of like, well, like your baby is in heaven now. And, or, you know, like God knows what he's doing. So I think that a lot of it was like, well-meaning, but like, so it just felt like so cruel, um, at that time for it to be like, here's like a nice sentiment about like, your baby's an angel. And it's like, I was there like, not to get graphic, but like, I was there like still bleeding, still in pain, not at all just ready for people to tell me like, oh, it's all going to be okay. Things will work out. So I don't know. It felt kind of like, kind of like positivity that went wrong.

That was mainly my experience. I get that. What do you think people should say? Because I think, you know, people are often at a loss. They want to say the right thing, but they're just not sure what to say. Yeah. I mean, I think that I'm sorry for your loss. What can I do? Goes a long way. I mean, I think that sending food delivery cards, I mean, not having to worry about dinner is such a huge thing. You know, I think that it's very normal to like want to relate and be like, well, here's my experience or like, here's what I think you should do. But I think that it's just so important when people are grieving for it to be okay. Like if there's a silence or like a stillness in your conversation, like you don't have to know what to say. I think it's just

telling people how sorry you are and then just, you know, letting them talk about it. We'll be right back for some more money rehab. Now for some more money rehab. And so what would you say about a miscarriage leave? Because it falls into this really murky gray zone of bereavement, medical leave, disability. Like it's not clear cut for a lot of folks. Oh, yeah. I totally have feelings about that. I mean, if it had happened to me even six months prior, I would have been at a I mean, it was a job that I enjoyed, but I would have been at a job where I would have had to take sick days. And it would be a matter of like, how much time can I really take off? The emotional toll of miscarriage is just so hard to explain to people.

And the idea for me of having to call my boss after surgery and explain like, you weren't that far along or like, you didn't look pregnant or like, now you want to take time off. You know, I think that it's just so important for us to have a conversation, you know, because even for my freelance clients, I was honest. I said, you know, I just had a very unexpected surgery with no notice. Like I need more time. And everyone was like, that's totally fine. But I think if I'd been in a corporate environment, that probably wouldn't have been received as positively. Yeah, I agree. I think that miscarriage leave is the kind of leave that no one ever wants to have to take. But I think it's the kind of leave that has to exist nonetheless. You know, my partner and

I work for ourselves, and this made us feel completely out of control. And my partner, you know, I think, I can't speak for him, but he tried to regain some control when we really noticed the leave being not commonplace for folks who don't work for themselves. So he is a co-founder of a financial services company. And while this was happening, he sent a note to his co-founder and then the CEO of the company and said, you know, Nicole's experience has really led us to this education that so many women have miscarriage and employers in many cases do not have miscarriage leave. So they now they want the best miscarriage leave ever. You know, founders and CEOs, they shouldn't have to have the personal experience that my partner did to try and enact change. But I think that you can really do it on

an individual level. You can make your own policy. For sure. You know, I think that it's an excellent way to show employees that you genuinely care about them. I think that's right. Well, I often say that sex and politics and all that stuff is not taboo, but what's taboo is money talk and also fertility, likely, and mental health. I think those are the last taboos we actually have. So thank you so much for talking about all of them today. Yeah, of course. I'm an open book. Thank you so much for having me. After a miscarriage, it feels impossible to go back to normal. I mean, I said it. I took a few days off work after it happened to me. a few days off work after it happened to me. It's hard for me, and I'm sure it's hard for you too, to imagine waking up tomorrow and talking about capital gains and side hustles. But I do that because it gives me purpose. It's what I'm passionate about. It's what I love. And I think

that doing what I love and doing the work I find meaningful is going to be how I get myself through this. And also with a new puppy. If my story or Ayana's story resonated with you at all, I'll put a link in the show notes to a petition I created for miscarriage leave. So for today's tip, you can take straight to the bank, give someone a little extra love, choose compassion. You don't always know when someone needs it. And thank you for listening to my story. And if you want to share your story, I would love to hear it. So please DM me anytime at Money Rehab Show, and I'll be there for you tomorrow. Penny, it's okay, baby. And I'll be right here for you tomorrow with some more Money Rehab. Money Rehab is a production of iHeartMedia.

I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Catherine Law. Money Rehab is edited and engineered by Brandon Dickert with help from Josh Fisher. Executive producers are Mangesh Hatikader and Will Pearson. Huge thanks to the OG Money Rehab supervising producer, Michelle Lanz, for her pre-production and development work. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.