The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby - Our Emergency Room Visit & the Cost of Miscarriage in America

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

Matt & Abby share life updates, including bringing home a new puppy and a recent trip to Missouri. They also open up about a family ER visit, revealing their miscarriage care totaled $35,000 and their toddler’s emergency treatment came with a shocking price tag too. The episode reflects on how quickly medical emergencies turn into overwhelming costs in the U.S. healthcare system. This episode is sponsored by Zocdoc & NOBL.Zocdoc: Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to http://Zocdoc.com/UNPLANNED to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today.NOBL: Don’t miss NOBL’s biggest Sale of the Year! Head to http://NOBLTravel.com for up to 62% off your entire order! #NOBL #ad Chapters: 00:00 - Matt & Abby 08:23 - Weekend trip to Missouri 09:53 - Working together in college 12:21 - Seeing college friends 14:04 - Old stomping grounds 22:26 - Silver Dollar City 24:15 - VIP Experience 30:02 - Haunted cave tour 31:31 - Christmas train 33:33 - First family trip to the ER 44:44 - Emergency room bill 48:34 - The cost of our miscarriage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off. But here's the good news. This doesn't have to be the story of your next chapter. Hormone Harmony by Happy Mammoth is an herbal formula made with science-backed ingredients,

designed to fine-tune your hormones by balancing estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and even stress hormones like cortisol. It helps with common issues such as hot. flashes, poor sleep, low energy, bloating, and more. With over 40,000 reviews and a bottle sold every 24 seconds, the results speak for themselves. A survey found 86% of women lost weight, 77% saw an improved mood, and 100% felt like themselves again. Start your next chapter feeling balanced and in control. For a limited time, get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your

old self back naturally. It was our first trip to the emergency room as a family. Hopefully the last, but the reality is the doctor even told me that day. He was like, won't be the last one, mom with two boys. All the medical care, a CT scan, staples, and the three-hour stay in the hospital. The subtotal was $9,605. We're sitting on a $35,000 bill for the miscarriage. Is it $35,000?

With everything I'm already dealing with on my end from those days in the hospital, I can't even mentally begin to tackle those bills. Six years ago, as newlyweds living in low-income housing, getting a bill, we're getting now would have devastated us financially. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Unplanned. We have a very special guest joining us today live in the studio. This actually is not live. You guys are not watching this live.

But it's pretzel. It's our dog. Pretzel. Pretzel. What would you like to say with being on this show? She just liked the mic. She wants to play. She wants to play.

She's so stir crazy right now. I feel bad holding her because he kind of just wants to run around. Go girl. Go play. And go play and chew on my socks. One of the main questions we've been getting asked is like, how do we come up with her name? Do we answer that on the podcast? I don't know.

Well, we watched this show in college called In the Dark about this girl that was blind and she was trying to. It seems like no one else watched this show about us because she had a golden retriever named pretzel. Like this is completely not creative on our part. Like, yeah. We saw a golden retriever with named pretzel and we're like, yeah, one day we'll have a golden retriever and we'll probably name it pretzel.

She was born on September, do you say 13th? Yeah. So she's officially three months and a couple days old. been such a joy she's already getting so big like we took a bigger we took a brief trip um this past weekend and just from coming home after a couple of days i noticed she grew i know like she's growing so fast she's she's smaller than both of our boys right now but in a year she will be bigger than both of our boys which is kind of crazy i want her to get bigger how is she going to get to be 60 pounds i don't get it is crazy i want her to get bigger though just so she can like sometimes i feel like

i have to defend her with the toddlers like they want to like play with her in a way that i'm like she does not bite or growl or cry when like they're like a little too rough with her so I feel like I have to constantly be on high alert but if she's bigger then I'm like she can yeah she's a little more tough but she can also fit to her pool fence right now so that's terrifying as well yeah which guys we have had so many questions about pretzels so I want to go ahead and answer some questions that you guys submitted on actually my personal Instagram a couple of days ago and so we'll get to those right now but stay tuned because we have so many updates to give you as far as like A trip to the emergency room that we had to go to a couple of days ago, which was terrifying.

Everything's okay. Don't worry. We're fine. And just a really fun family trip to Silver Dollar City, which is a theme park that Abby and I grew up going to when we first started dating and we were, you know, in college, about to get married. It was just like, it's a cool theme park that we had a lot of fun at. But anyway.

And we also got to visit the place that we worked at. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. That was really fun seeing our old boss. But anyway, first question. Speaking of going to town. I should go get her. You want to read one of these questions? The one at the top is the one that I thought would be interesting to start with. What do you like most about her? I love how cuddly she is. She will just let me

hold her in my arms like a baby and we walk around and look at Christmas lights. She looks awkward right out the way you're holding her. She's basically a human. We're best buddies. She's licking my hand right now. Hi. I'm surprised you like having a dog so much. I love it. My parents wouldn't let me get a dog. I begged for a dog as a kid and then we settled on getting a ferret because because my parents didn't want to have a dog. They thought that a parrot would be like less maintenance. And it was. Like I took care of that ferret all by myself. But yeah, I had a rat. I had a ferret. We had a goldfish. Never a dog. Never had ever had a dog. So this is so much fun. Well, they're man's best friend. And I actually do things she likes you better than me. And well, babe, they're like they're really

good with kids too. At least she's really good with kids. And I feel like it's so much easier. Like the newborn stage, I feel like we we had tough newborns. born so have like i think we just got blessed with a perfect puppy because she's she like does no wrong the worst that she does is poop on the carpet every once in a while but that's so easy clean up like that takes less time than changing a diaper is cleaning poop off the carpet the only downside i was actually concerned for was the shedding and it is it's a problem i mean look at if you guys look at my black shirt right now it's covered completely covered in hair and she's just a puppy so she's gonna get bigger maybe she just never wear black ever again i probably should stop wearing black shirt

You know, if I'm, if I'm going to be holding pretz, I shouldn't wear a black shirt. We also are unfazed by her mischief and her messes because that's the name of the game in our household right now. So, I mean, I guess you could make an argument for both sides, but I want to be more vocal about the argument of maybe thinking about getting a dog after you have kids, when you have little kids, because it's just like adds to the crazy, no problem. Yeah, I would 100% agree with that. I think something that we're going to do to mitigate the pet dander in our house is get a robotic

vacuum. We're going to try to consistently brush her so that like all of that shedding, you know, goes out into our yard. Also, I heard that swimming for dogs can help with it with the shedding, right? So we'll just let our pool filter handle all of that. And then get her groomed often. Get her groomed. Yeah, getting her groomed off and will be good. We also don't let her upstairs. Yeah, I think it's just a good idea to have the dog on the lower level. Yeah. So I installed this like baby gate that goes across the front of our stairs that she can't even get upstairs. So that's good. But we don't even, haven't even had that. She doesn't try.

Yeah, I know. She's good. It's like she learned to not go upstairs. Yeah. We've got to teach her to actually go poop outside every single time. And not only that, but not poop or pee on the turf because I don't want our turf to start smelling really bad. That's a different battle. I feel like you need to pick your battles, honestly.

What are battles you're trying to pick with pretzel? Oh, let's not poop and pee in the house. That's a good one. Yeah. I'm a fan of that. I still think it's funny that even though she had direct access to the outdoors at our friends house yesterday she still took a crap on the rug yeah she really likes to go poop only on rugs or turf it's still funny to me like i again i think pretzel is is an easy puppy but i i feel like

with how easy pretzels pretzell is i feel like i could have 20 pretz like i feel like pretzell equals 20 20 children or 20 pretzels equals one kid. No dog is the same like some people's dogs are incredibly like much more like of a handful yeah in the early stages and like kids are like really easy babies and the other thing is like parenting and raising a child is hard but i think it's the most rewarding thing you can do on this earth so we're one of one of the most you know there's there's there's some other other stuff up there that's like pretty rewarding and pretty cool but yeah i uh i'm a fan i love i love happen to a puppy she's so cute i think a big conversation we had before getting a puppy is like okay well we like to travel a lot how are we

going to do this with a dog and we did just have our first weekend away from pretzel and so we missed her but we got lots of pictures and updates and um i think we overall decided that at least for now it's best for her to stay in the house especially as a puppy like she's still getting used to our house we didn't want her like moving around a lot and we just want her to feel really comfortable and safe and she feels comfortable and safe in her house and um we had someone stay with her and just keep her normal routine yeah which is i think that's ideal for like little kids and and also for dogs. So that parallel is there for sure.

But she had the sweetest girl, like watching her and playing with her, sending lots of pictures. Yeah, I'm really thankful. We got some family photos with pretzel a couple weeks ago. And the photographer that took the photos, she brought a friend along. And that friend has a golden retriever. And she's like really, really good with dogs

because she's just grown up with dogs. And so she's been amazing. You know, I think we've had her watch pretzell a total of like, what, four days or something now. So it's been really helpful to have someone that you know and you can trust that really knows what they're doing. And I think that makes all the difference. Like when you have a puppy, you just want to make sure that your puppy is, like, I don't want our dog going into some like cage or going into some place where she doesn't like know people. And so here

she feels safe. She's in her own house. And with a really sweet girl who knows how to take good ever. Yeah, so that felt really good. But the reason, guys, that we went back to Missouri for this trip. Did we say that we went to Missouri? Oh, yeah. For the long weekend. Yeah. So we did a weekend trip back to Springfield, Missouri. It's where Abby and I went to college at Missouri State University. Abby graduated. I did not. I think your grandma still wants me to graduate. But anyway, it was amazing because we went to Silver Dollar City, which is a theme park that does. Apparently Silver Dollar City is getting big on social media. They're huge. They go all out for Christmas every single year. We've been going for years. I mean, we started to

going there together. Our sophomore year of college. Was that? Yeah, was that 2018 that we went there? Maybe 2017. Do we go in 2017 as freshman? Maybe we did. Maybe we did go in 2017. Yeah, because we were both working at Flame Steakhouse at the time, which you were a cocktail waitress. I was a busser. And I saved up so that we could eat at that fancy restaurant. Because it was like, it's like one of the nicest restaurants in Springfield. For my birthday. For Abby's birthday. And then I surprised you with, tickets to Silverdard City. Did we get an employee discount? I think we did actually. I think we did get it an employee discount, which helped. That's expensive. Now I really want that again. They actually have really good food. You want to go back? Yeah. They just have these really good

dry aged steaks and they have lobster mac and cheese. I feel like Griffin would love them at lobster mac and cheese. We didn't really like working there though so maybe we don't need to like to promote it. Promote it. I think that was a little bit suspicious. There's some sketch stuff that happened. Allegedly. Allegedly. Alleged. Allegedly. Allegedly. That was our first job in college guys at that restaurant. Our second job, the owners were much better.

A great experience. We worked at this pizza restaurant called Bellasinos. And I also always feel like when I say that, people that, like, maybe actually speak Italian or are Italian, probably look at the way that it's spelled and probably think it should be Bellicinos. Well, I thought it was Bellicinos. And then the owner of the, I guess it's a franchise, was like, no, we call it Belcinos. So maybe that's just like the Midwestern.

pronunciation of it. It's how us white people call it in Missouri. Just, just know that. Anyway, they have really good pizza, really good grinders. They call grinders or hot sandwiches. They're known for their pizza and grinders. And their food is so good, but also working there, like, was such a sweet time in our lives. It was before we got engaged, we're dating, and we had to, like, convince a restaurant to hire both of us because our goal was to be servers because you can make more hourly because of tips. Yeah. And, but it was really hard to convince people to hire us at this time because, like, serving, jobs like this was before COVID so I feel like serving jobs were like everyone was trying to get

them that and like we had never served before other than at that flame steakhouse and you weren't a server anyway we were trying to find someone that would hire the two of us when we're dating and that was hard because it kind of makes you a liability well the reason yeah we were a liability nobody wants to hire a couple right unless you're married if you're married that's different like they expect you to stay together but even then it probably is still messier if you're dating though yeah like that it probably could be yeah do people not want to hire married couples at companies I don't know maybe not I don't know, but we had to, we, the reason we had to work together is not because we were like

the clingiest couple in the world, which we were pretty clingy, but it was because we shared a vehicle. So, like, if we were both going to work at the same time, we needed to work at the same place. But we checked, we went back, we took the boys to get some pizza, some grinders. Talk to our bosses and owners. Blaine and Janice. If you guys ever go to, um, Belasinos in Springfield on, is it on Battlefield road? Is that? Yeah, across from the mall. You've got to go. Their food is so good. And, um, And here's a picture of us with Blaine and Janice. We got a little selfie with them. They're doing well.

They said business is doing great, which is I'm so happy to hear that for them because I know it's really hard owning a restaurant. Yeah, we were there their first. We were like their first hires. No, yeah, we opened the restaurant. We opened the restaurant with them. And that's a grind. Yeah. That is hard.

And so I like respect them for sticking it out and so happy that they're doing well. And also their food is as good as ever. So if you're in Springfield visiting or like live there, you got to go. Trust me. You got to go tell Blaine and Janice high for us. The restaurant is so nostalgic feeling, too. Like, I just, I love it. Got to even reconnect with some college friends that we, that we, like, hung out with in college a lot.

Yeah. So, two of Abby's friends from. They're in our wedding. Yeah, they were in our wedding. Her best friend Morgan from growing up, her really close friend Kara from growing up, and their husbands, we hung out with them. That's always so sweet. Like, I'm sure a lot of people can relate to having friends that you don't necessarily, that maybe they live out of town and you don't talk every day or very often.

but like when you meet when you see them again you pick up like nothing like there was no time in between yeah and that's really sweet because i also know too that like if anything happens like big things in my life they're always going to be filled in and they're always going to be there for me and um that's really sweet because like i don't know sometimes you can look at where you're at currently and be like okay like i love my new friends but there's just something about old friends too that is just that just really just makes you feel so safe as a person and so like rooted and grounded And I also know that they would also keep me accountable if like, say, for instance, I started acting all like different one day. Like, hey, like, I think that they would be like, what's going on?

Like, I feel like they, like, they know me and they would keep me accountable to a version of myself that, like, has space to grow, but also just like, you know, keep me on track. I really enjoyed seeing old friends driving around the old shopping grounds. I realized being in Springfield, I know the streets and I know the areas better than I know Arizona, which was weird to me. Because I think Arizona is so big and so spread out that I just haven't quite like mapped it in my brain yet. But I just knew I didn't need Google Maps really when we were in Springfield like or Apple Maps. Like I was just able to drive and I was like, oh, this is Grand. Oh, this is Kansas Expressway. Like I knew everywhere were to drive.

And that was cool. We even drove by like random places like, yeah. Oh my gosh. Wait, guys, this was actually like, I almost made me tear up driving by because I'm like, I'm like, how do we? I was like, how do we do this? but we drove by the low-income housing apartments that we used to live in. And it was in like a not so great part of town, which I don't think it's not necessarily unsafe. It's just a very low-income area. There's houses when you drive by in that area that

are like very run down. There was a house that we drove by that looked like it got into a fire and it just hasn't been repaired yet. I subbed in those schools around there too and it's just it's a title one, it's what they call it. And you told me, you know, one of the times you subbed at those schools. There's some sad stories from those schools. Didn't you say there was a girl that literally slept the entire time that you were subbing. Unfortunately, that's not uncommon. Like, you know, these kids, you don't know what their home is like, like why they can't get a good night's rest. But all the teachers that day, there's one day specifically, there's one little girl that stands out to me a lot that is, they're like, just let her sleep. Yeah. Like,

it's more important that she sleeps right now than like whatever you're teaching them in the classroom. That just makes me really sad because, yeah, it just makes you wonder. you know what's happening at home and i just think those teachers like obviously i was just a sub in for a day but those teachers that are with them every day there really are just like angels to those kids and i just like i think that's what honestly makes me so mad today like this is just a totally different soapbox i didn't expect to get on but there's just like a lot of heat towards the public schools and public schools teachers that honestly nothing lights a fire under me than that because it's like you run your mouth but you're not in those schools you're not in those schools you're

around those kids day in and day out like advocate they they're mandatory reporters they are they are they have to advocate for these children more than just teach them whatever they're you know given to teach them they're they're advocating for them they're like loving on them and they're like also teaching them like their own internal dialogues they are with their children with your with people's children more than their own parents are with them and i don't think that's wrong but that's i mean that's their job and then people are just running their mouth that haven't stepped foot in an elementary classroom in the past decade and they have a lot to say and it's like oh well have you talked to a teacher recently that teaches in a public school have you been in a public school they don't know

what's going on and so i yeah that's a whole different topic but i just get so frustrated because it's like these these people like there's a lot of women in elementary but like these men and women are you know sacrificing so much of their time with their own kids with their own families working for low pay in their off time like they're not working in their contracted hours all the time they're working way in their off contracted hours just so out of passion at that point and love for their kids but then just to be regarded like that publicly is just it's shameful and I think that we really need to work on our rhetoric around teachers and like the school system in general like let's talk about support and stop bringing them down like it's crazy Thank you to Zoc Doc for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. I recently had an appointment with a psychiatrist all through Zoc Doc. Guys, I've done ADHD diagnoses through Zococ. That sounded like I've done it multiple times.

That was just a one-time thing. One and done. That was a one-and-done type of thing. When I got a concussion, I did a same-day appointment with Zococ. It's amazing. If you haven't heard of it, Zococ is a free app and website where you can search and compare high-quality in-network doctors and click to instantly book an appointment. You can book in-network appointments with more than 100,000 doctors across every specialty.

What's cool about ZocDoc is that you can filter for doctors who take your insurance, who are located nearby, and are a good fit for any medical need you may have. Their doctors are also highly rated by verified patients. Plus, appointments made through Zock-Dock happen fast, typically within just 24 to 72 hours of booking. And you can also score same-day appointments, which we have multiple times. Oh, yeah. I use Zock, and you should too, stop putting off those doctors' appointments and go to Zok-Tock. doc.com slash unplanned to find an instantly book a top rated doctor today. That's zocdoc.com slash unplanned. Zockdoch.com slash unplanned. Another thing about living in that low income housing

development is there was another girl that we would consistently see who didn't really have parents in her life. She was living with her grandpa. We at one point, I was like, I legitimately had a conversation with you, Abby, about like, should we see if we can adopt her? Like, I don't know if this was, if that's something that her grandpa would be open to, but we would just see her alone. You did ask him. Yeah, we see her, like, alone playing by herself in the parking lot of this apartment all the time, and she was four. And so we ended up, you know, taking her on little outings to McDonald's and to the playground. And we would just take her and go play with her. Because they didn't have a car, so, like, she couldn't actually leave. And there's nowhere within walking distance that

they could go to. And we had friends in our, in our community, you know, our community group of people, like, they ended up taking on that role of, like, checking in on this girl when we left and moved to Hawaii. And I was so grateful to our friends for doing that. I actually don't know, like, how she's doing or where she's at or if they're still living there at this point. But that was like, that was just, you, when you, when you live in a place like that, you really see what goes on in the world and it like opens your eyes to yeah we're not all starting at ground zero right yeah like some people are starting at a great advantage in life and some people are starting way below basic needs being met and i think that was just uh it's just making me emotional think

about but that was a really good perspective that we got early in our marriage about like life and privilege and yeah like I don't know just gratitude just so much gratitude but also like it was it really just how it's like set a foundation of compassion in our lives because it's like you can talk a lot about like a system or like people in this status or this X Y and Z or in this school district or in this school or in this occupation but when you actually are in relationship with them is when it like add so much more nuance and so much more empathy. and compassion and I am really grateful for that season in Springfield and also that yeah just being back

in springfield in general was like so comforting for me because I'm like I just it feels like it feels like such a sweet season and like everything felt really like low relatively low risk at that point in our lives like we were in school like we had this we had so much structure around us yeah and like had jobs and, like, everything, like, felt safe and simple. It was so simple. But it also made me feel like so melancholy being back. Like, I don't know. You didn't like the cold. Also, I hated the cold. Oh my gosh. I've literally forgot that we used to literally live in that all, every winter. I'm such a baby now. You were cracking me up. Like, it hurt. Like actually the cold, like literally, it felt like it was sending ice up my, into my head.

I had a headache because it was so cold. And our boys haven't really experienced stuff like that. They stopped walking. So they like one time Griffin washed his hands and got like water all over his coat. And then his hands were still wet because he like didn't wipe them off properly. And I was like, hey buddy, you need to put your hands inside the coat pockets. They have no survival skills for below 50 degrees. He didn't understand that like being wet in the cold like when we were about to walk outside of the bathroom, that's going to freeze the crap out of his hands.

He just had no recollection of that. And so I was trying to like teach him. how it works when you're outside of the cold yeah no he hasn't they have no idea they're just learning you know they're just like figuring it out you just like stopped walking at one point he's like I'm too coldy and I was like well we got to get to the heated area so we got to walk buddy yeah I can't yeah which which again was the reason that we actually flew back and did this trip was for silver dollar city because at Christmas time specifically which was incredible Abby how did this silver dollar city trip come to be because you were DMing the silver dollar city account

right? And then they like invited us. We've been in conversation with them before and they like had us reach out via email and they organized this trip with us. And I mean, it was the most incredible experience for our family. I think especially having two little kids like getting to get the most out of this trip like back to back to back like while we were there was just, I mean, it was a blast. And the fact that we got to bring your parents along too also made it like even more like special and worth it too and so we got to go on ride so if you know what silver dollar city is it's like i explained it as like the most wholesome theme park you could go to like it is in branson missouri uh just and honestly branson's beautiful driving through there i was like i forget how beautiful

like these trees and hills are and it's like the most wholesome theme park because they have um a lot of the employees are like retirees who are just very sweet and like like like, just want to be around people and especially kids. So that's awesome. But they have great food. The best theme park food you can get. Let's just say it a million times better than Disney World. Their food is awesome.

It is awesome. They had amazing, like, special treats. And they took really good care of us. Like, guys, we have been to this theme park probably 10 or 15 times because I came growing up as a kid. We started going together when we were in college. It's a really special park to the both of us. And we have never, ever.

had a VIP experience like we it was just like something that we it was like a really big deal that we were going in the first place so this time having um did i did we say that did we say that they no okay yeah so silver dollar city gave us a VIP experience this time where we had a guide who was getting us to the front of the line for every ride we went on and it was I felt guilty it was so good I felt guilty I was like this is I feel wrong like I don't I don't get it it was crazy though yeah we had amazing guide. Let's shout her out. Her name was Abby too. Yes. She was really sweet and like helped us get treats

and meals. But I'm confident like with if you just got tickets to Silver Dollar City and just went, it's way easy. You don't have to be nearly as strategic as these other parks. Not like Disney. It's not as crowded as Disney. You're going to be able to get around just fine, get on rides and it's decked out at Christmas time.

Like they have like what is it? Eight million lights, something crazy. Let me look it up because I want to make sure that we say the exact number. Like every year they add more lights they have a beautiful and really well done christmas parade they have christmas shows they do a christmas carol and then this like christmas saloon with these singers and dancers that dad's dad was actually oh my gosh yes i mean if there was an experience i could highlight the differences between my dad and your dad anymore i cannot think of it because my dad will not attend shows if there's even an inkling that there's audience interaction your dad

he's terrified of getting called up to the front that's his worst fear yes didn't it didn't he get called one time and he slid out he snuck out no he he was in a show and he realized that there was audience interaction and he slid like literally army crawled to an exit he left the show because he did not it was the monster zinc ride or show if anyone's ever done it the laugh floor it's not even like they're calling you up they're just putting the camera on you that's it that's enough for him to army crawl out gosh you could you could not be more different than your dad i don't know how i have his DNA honestly yeah because you love you love being on stage like you're a great performer you love the art of performing yes i'm a tension hog but no he's certainly

that's his like phobia wears fear and so but your dad is called up on stage you were on a ride with your brother oh yeah because you also got to bring your brother along which was so fun too your little brother josh and um they called your dad up to like and put a santa hat on him and there's like a chair and your dad was taking a lot of liberties well he like didn't he like straddled the chair straddled the chair he was it was like a saloon show with all these like saloon girls and then what was funny is our youngest was like he he he loves the ladies like he just anytime he sees pretty grurals he was saying yeah pretty grurals he was calling them pretty grurals grurals it's like squirrel but he wanted to keep seeing the picture of him with he got a picture with all the ladies at the end

they were so sweet to him and then afterwards he kept wanting to like look at that picture he's Like, no, they're pretty girls. Oh, that's so funny. But, uh, I, yeah, your dad was on stage for like two minutes and like hammed up every second of it. I would have thought he was like part of the entertainment. I got the, the facts right here. Over 6.5 million Christmas lights.

Incredible. During its annual old time Christmas festival. The best hot chocolate. The best hot wossel. Yes. They have, um, every delicious holiday treat you can think of. They have hot cocoa funnel cakes. The dend.

The gingerbread funnel cake was incredible. They gave us this passport, like pass to get five different snacks. We can get this. It's $37. You can get five treats off of this passport. And you guys, my mom, because we were getting free stuff, the VIP, like, we essentially did like a social media trade for them. And my mom was freaking out because my mom, she's a frugal queen, okay?

We grew up, like only shopped at Aldi for groceries. We had shopped the clearance section at Marshalls. I guarantee you packed snacks for when you went to Silver Dollar City as a kid. Oh, of course we did. Of course. And when we went to six flags as kids, we'd pack our lunch. We would not buy the food in the park. Are you kidding me?

No way. So my mom getting free food, like we had a free meal there. Like the VIP experience included all this stuff, which actually you can, you can pay for this too. Like, it's something that will probably pay for in the future because it was like really, really nice and it's less expensive than the Disney World VIP experience. And better. You get better. I think it's better.

Sorry, Disney. But anyway, my mom was very. freaking out. She loved it. And then when we got these funnel cakes, I have this video of my mom. It was like she was like three margaritas deep. She was so funny because she's walking around with all these funnel cakes. And she is just the has this huge smile on her face because she's so happy that not only are we in Silver Dollar City for free, but she got all this free food. And she's just like over the middle. I mean, they had, there's also a treat there that's if anyone's had this, comment down below. Apparently it's a Midwest thing. We're raised in Midwest and we both

have never had it. But it's called it's a cinnamon roll. with Ozark is what they call Ozark Chilli on top. I wanted to try that. So we needed to go back next year and try. We're already planning a trip for next year and bringing all of our friends and doing it again because I'm telling you it was the greatest experience, especially with little kids. Like I can't recommend Silver Dollar City enough.

We've loved them for years and like it's so special now getting to take our kids there and experience it at Christmas time together. It was magical. It was joyful. It was so sweet. Yeah, it really was. It really was. Our boys, every single time we wrote a rock.

They want to do the ride again. I don't think there was a single ride that we did that they didn't say again afterward. And I just had to say, oh, we're going to do another one. We'll come back. And we ended up doing so many rides. We didn't have time to come back for a second one. So I felt bad. But they loved it.

I mean, they, I think we'll have to go back for sure. Hopefully, hopefully a lot. I would love to go a lot. They have like face painting for kids. They have games for kids. They even have, I mean, the whole theme park was built because of this cave, which is cool. You can visit the cave.

and which we've done in the past and that's really neat too. Especially because the cave is 67 degrees year round. So if it's frigid in the wintertime and you need a break from being outside, you can just go into the cave and get a cave tour, which I was talking to our tour guide, Abby, and she does tours of the cave.

And Abby, I think you might have overheard this. She was telling me that the cave is apparently haunted that all the different guides have said they've heard voices down there. Apparently 200 years ago in the 1800s, there was a Girl Scout troop that got lost and they never found them or something down there. She said that she's heard her name spoken by some unknown voice when she's turning off lights at the end of her shift. So I think it'd be

cool if either like a paranormal activity YouTuber filmed a vlog like spending the night down there and saying if you hear anything. But I also volunteered myself to do it. I don't know who I need to talk to from Silver Dollar City to spend the night in marble cave. I am a skeptic. I don't believe in that stuff. I don't really believe in ghosts. So like, I genuinely would love to spend the night down there. Maybe I wouldn't do it alone. Or should I do it alone? Would that be cool?

Are you proposing I join you? I don't know. Maybe I was going to think of like DMing like a paranormal activity YouTube account and be like, do you guys want to go make this while there, Matt Howard? This is a random idea I had. While we were touring the park, I was like, this would be a fun video to make. I don't know. I don't really believe in that stuff, but maybe there actually is a ghost in the cave.

I don't know. I'm not super stitious but I'm a little stitious Yeah so anyway it was cold but we did the train We did I did a roller coaster with my brother Wait no you got to talk about the Christmas train The Christmas train that is the cherry on top I you have to go on this Christmas train It is the sweetest thing ever

The first time I went on it made me cry Really? Yes it's beautiful There's like a grandpa in the woods Telling the story of Christmas it's really really sweet And it's great for kids Yeah and you get to see the entire park You get to see all the all the sick point five million lights it's a sing along train so you could also sing like rudolph red nose reindeer and stuff

on the train no you're you're totally right yeah i try not to sing along because i just ruin it for everybody else because i can't my range is getting lower like smaller and smaller the what i speak at is what i can sing it the other thing that i love about silver at our city you guys their rides are actually really good so they're pretty crazy so like disney world sometimes they get annoyed if we go to like the like magic kingdom because magic kingdom doesn't really have roller coasters I think they got the tron ride recently isn't that the one they have big thunder space mountain and Indiana Jones is fun but the rides at silver dollar city are like very fast they're like 70 miles per hour yeah they're like true roller coasters yeah so like outlaw run goes upside down

time traveler upside down while you're spinning it's I think the tallest largest and fast is spinning wooden coaster in North America. Yeah. I think that's what they had on a billboard a couple years ago. And then powder keg is one that like takes off. You go zero to 60, I think, in like two seconds or something. I wrote that as a kid and I loved it. Like it was, it was my favorite ride as a child.

They really have something for everyone. There's someone for the thrill seekers, something for the, they have a little chapel that you can sing Christmas carols in. That's like really like an old actual like log cabin chapel. It's great and wholesome. Oh, yeah. we love it. Can't recommend silver dollars to be enough and also can't thank them enough for what like incredible memories we made with our family. Yeah. If you can't tell, we want to go back.

Hopefully they ask us back. That would be fun to go again. But I will say with all that being said, something did happen on this trip. Yes. That was terrifying. Probably one of the scariest parenting moments we've had. Our first trip to the emergency room as a family. Thank you to Noble for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. We've We spend a good amount of time at the airport, and I can't tell you how many times we've been walking around through security and trying to get to our gate, and I have just wished I had like four more arms and hands. Yeah, and that's why I'm a huge fan of this, carry on, because check it out.

There's a built-in cup holder, people, right here. Are you seeing this? Super neat. How many times have you just been trying to juggle a hot coffee, all your technology, whatever you're carrying? And I really like that there's a charging port on top, so if your phone's dying, which literally happened to me yesterday at the airport, you just plug in me. your phone to your suitcase how convenient it's built in and check this out they have a front

laptop pocket that makes tsa a breeze because you have to take that out to go through the systems just goes boop pop it out and then pop it back in super convenient there's also lots of convenient little compartments to keep your stuff organized it's not all just loose in the bag and what's great is that you don't have to drag it behind you because it has these 360 wheels it can ride right alongside you you don't have to drag it you're not tripping everyone around you unlike most bags noble has no zipper at all at lock show with a latch system that can't be pried open. These are locks and then you can just undo those.

Noble is the number one top rated luggage on Trust Pilot and it's for a reason, you guys. Every suitcase comes with a hundred day money back guarantee and free three-day express shipping. And did we mention that it has a lifetime warranty? It's the last suitcase you'll ever need to buy. Upgrade to luggage that looks better, lasts longer, and travels smarter. For a limited time, Noble is having the biggest sale they've ever done. head to nobletravel.com for up to 58% off your entire order. That's n-o-b-l-travel.com for up to 58% off.

After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. Yes, so first family trip to the ER, hopefully the last, but the reality is the doctor even told me that day. He was like, won't be the last one, mom with two boys. And I was like, shut up. Yeah. I don't know to hear that. He actually said that.

Um, so one of our toddlers took a tumble to the head and landed actually on a really sharp metal corner and split his head open really good. Did you know that happened to one of my brothers when we were kids? Really? It happened to me. He had to get a bunch of stitches on his, on his forehead. You, it happened to your head? I'd get hot glue across my forehead.

I didn't know that they would hot glue your forehead. They did that to you as a kid. Well, I think it's more worried about cosmetics on your face rather than like it happened to his head. So there's no like, like, wait, actually, I think I can kind of see it. Yeah, that's the. Remnants. It happened on my third birthday. That's so sad.

Yeah. Babe. I remember it, actually. I tripped and hit a corner, sharp corner, but it was brick. Our toddler hit the metal on the top of his head and got some staples. Yeah. It was so sad, you guys. I've never had, have you had staples?

Oh, no, you had staples on your C-section. Yeah. Because I had stitches when I was five, I felt, gosh, everyone takes Tumbles dead, I guess, when you're a little kid. Yeah. But when I was five on Easter. I was like sprinting to go grab an egg, tripped so hard on this like concrete lip and just ate it like face first into this concrete structure, blood everywhere.

I guess my parents were too concerned because they just took me to their doctor friend's house and he stitched me up. I think that was a frugal thing. I think that was a frugal thing. Hey, I don't blame them. Hey, I said you called him on Easter. I don't blame them. Oh, yeah.

I guess we went to my. She's like he wasn't doing anything. No, I guess I think he took. a break from the Easter Sunday celebration and went and went and did some stitches at this house really not really nice family friend of my parents but no I think it's just like which I don't Abby I don't blame my parents for not taking me to like the ER because it's extremely expensive yeah it's extremely expensive and I think I think what we did I don't I don't regret anything of that we did was our the bill that we got ridiculously expensive we kind of just wanted to take an abundance of precaution yeah which is a privilege too to not have to like I just want to do the most safe thing for my kid But it's really unfair that, like, people when making a decision regarding their kids, like, health or, like, say they're taking care of an injury, like, have to consider the fact that these bills are staggering and, like, I don't know, it seems like they pull these numbers out of nowhere. But I'm really, ultimately, I'm really, really glad that we did just because we can and, like, just really wanted to make sure that he was taking care of. I literally could not, I felt the most like a parent, like, I've ever, than I've ever felt. in that moment because I just like wanted to trade places with him so badly and just wanted to like

yeah take that on for him but he's really such a trooper and like is healing so well and I'm just so so grateful for the amazing care that we did receive because I was like oh my gosh if I was just like on my own to deal with this like everyone was so compassionate and nice that like helped him out and so kid centered it was nice that we could go to like a kid like they have a pediatric unit at this ER and so like they had toys for him and they had like all these they even like they tried to give him a binky at one point I was like it's just nice that they had like kids centered things obviously he didn't really want the binky but um yeah I thought I thought that the the police that showed up were amazing I thought that the paramedics that showed up were amazing did the fire department come to

or was it just paramedic they're the first responders they were the the first one's there. I thought there's a police officer that showed up and he was applying. He wasn't a police officer. Are you sure? Firemen don't have guns though. This dude had like he had his whole entire. Oh. It's said yeah it was like police. It was like weird because the first vehicle was a fire truck. Yeah. He just was trying to help. Everyone was like doing their job. Oh, you can say that. He was like trying to stop the bleeding, but the bleeding had already stopped. Well that was the thing. So the bleed, yeah, the bleeding had already stopped. We were trying to explain to the 911 operator.

The bleeding stopped relatively quickly, which was a huge relief. That was a huge relief because apparently everyone that we talked about this, all of our friends and family, apparently if you ever have a head injury, your head just gushes blood, which I experienced this when I hit my head on a dumbbell at Abby's gym last year. We had blood a lot. There was a ton of blood. There was blood all over my head. I have pictures of it.

I was just gushing blood out of my head. And that was just a concussion. I didn't need, maybe I could have gotten stitches, but I never got stitches. but like that was a huge relief when I noticed the blood stopping the the only thing which I don't I don't think this is anybody's fault like I don't I don't blame any anyone for this at all I want to say from the time that we called 911 to the time that he was in the yard was like 20 minutes like 30 minutes yeah minimum and it just made me concerned like again everybody was amazing but I think it's almost more of a systematic issue of how do we make sure that when something

is an emergency that people are helped as quickly as possible is honestly most of the time it's a matter of speed well i also just think in the grand scheme of things like for us since he's our son and we were so scared of the blood it was like level level one like the worst thing ever but in the grand scheme of accidents it really wasn't that bad but it's just because it was our son and there was so much blood and i didn't want to take i didn't want to like if here's the reality we could have driven just a couple minutes to the hospital ourselves got him into the ER much quicker if we'd have just gone. Now, I think that would have been very risky because if you take it under your own hands,

sometimes you don't know, like, okay, how bad is this head injury by moving him around? Is it going to make it bleed more? We don't want more blood. We want the bleeding to stop. Like there's a bunch of different things. Also, if there's ever an issue with like some sort of damage to the neck, like if you pick somebody up that had a potential neck injury from my understanding, it could potentially it could potentially end their life or it could potentially like mess up their uh what's it

called they make him paralyzed now that's not what we oh my gosh we weren't there dealing with that that's more of like a car accident sort of issue um so anyway so abby um Abby went in the ambulance with our son uh I ended up taking our other son in our car and drove us to the hospital um and I just used your like location we share location with each other so I just like figured out where you were the hospital based off your location and then when i got to um the er i just said your name and they told me where to go and he was totally calmed down by then so that was really reassuring for me and yeah he just was really happy when his big brother came in with him and got to watch a show yeah like yeah it was gosh that one took a couple years off my life probably and from now on i will

only allow our kids to wear helmets and be fully bubble wrapped out in public dude like the next the next day the only thing i could think about was just like i'm so glad our kids okay i'm so glad our kids okay i'm so because i was really scared there for a little bit and i didn't give myself time to process no it wasn't it wasn't until he went to bed that night that i started shaking really i didn't realize that you were shaking after he went to bed i told you i was shaking after he went to bed because it's finally like my body was like oh i'm stressed but like i i think that like something that's why i said i didn't panic like i i mean obviously there was fear but i like handled the situation.

I wasn't frozen and I also didn't like disengaged. Like I was engaged in the situation like helping him. I never left his side. And then, and like was answering the questions like making sure that he got the care that he needed and an abundance of care because why not. But then it wasn't until he was like I was sure that he was okay and that he was in bed that my body started to like,

I couldn't even eat dinner. Like you're like thinking about food. I'm like, I'm not hungry, bro. Like I'm like on fight or flight right now. It made me feel very. very relieved when the doctors and nurses at the hospital were super chill like oh yeah he's fine like we ran all the tests there's uh you know no no fracture we did the CT skate like everything's fine yeah so they

they were reassuring for they were like i was like trying to ask so many questions just to really get down to the nitty gritty and they were like yeah he's good he's fine no they were like i was like can you give us a little bit more instruction seriously i was like i need details But for them it wasn't that, I guess for us it was like the end of the world, but for them and they were like, we see this every day and it's not totally uncommon, which is crazy. And I'm just so thankful for those people in emergency care because that takes a special person. That takes a very special person to remain common to those situations and like also not get squeamish

because heck, that was. Yeah. That was visual. That was graphic for me. That was, I never thought I was going to faint, but for a minute there, I was like, I could yak right now. Yeah. Here, this was a bit of a shocker, though.

again. No, this is not a shocker. We've seen this time and time again. Maybe it wasn't a shocker, but it's just, I think it reveals a flaw in our medical system in America, which I think we're all aware of. I just think we need to keep talking about it, something changes. But for this, this bill, by the way, does not include the ambulance, because that's going to be another probably 800 to 2,500 bucks is what I looked up online that it estimated. But for all the medical care, which was like a CT scan, you know, staples and some medicine and the three-hour stay in the hospital. We're looking at $6,281.87. Yeah, it wasn't even quite three hours. Six thousand, yeah. Six thousand, two hundred dollars in some change. And we did give them our insurance information

too. We don't have it. We have a health share. So the health share is different. We're hoping, fingers crossed that the health share comes in and knocks off some of that. Well, I'm I don't know, they didn't take anything off of my miscarriage bills. Really? Yeah. The subtotal was $9,605. And 50 cents. Here's the thing.

I don't believe any of that. I think that they just put those numbers there so you feel like you're getting some type of discount. I'm fully confident that they pull these numbers out of some imaginary magicians hat. Because every time after something like this has happened, I get a call. I got a call the next day after this happened. That was like, hey, we can maybe help. you out before we send you this bill like what's your income they like ask questions about that and

like okay let me just say this from a this is coming from a place where I'm very grateful where this bill is not going to yeah ruin us financially I'm going to acknowledge that that's a that's such a privilege I'm so grateful for that but I'm speaking for the fact that whenever I do anything else in my life they don't set the price based on like they don't ask me a series of questions about myself before they set the price. I would like to get the price of what they, like the tools that they used, the gear that they used, and the staffing that and like those types of things, I'd like to get that. I think transparent pricing is really important. Here's what worries me. And I love that you're saying this, Abby. So like we, we are fortunate that we've made it. We have, we have a successful

podcast. We have a successful, you know, media company, whatever. And so we can afford to pay this $6,200 bill. But there's a lot of people that can't, which is, which is, which is, infuriating because basic medical care, like someone hitting their head and just needing some staples, that should be something that, like, at least is affordable for the average American. And it bothers me that, like, we went into this. Obviously, we're not going to be, like, shopping around for pricing when our kid's head is bleeding. Like, we're going to take care of it and make sure that he's safe and well taken care of. But it bothers me how, like, you have something like that happened and then you're hit with a, yeah, a $6,281 bill.

No, but my point is, is like, that's not even what it costs. You're right. And that's what's not. They're pulling that number out of thin air. And capitalism has effed up the medical industry in America. I'm really glad that there's extra support for people that have like lower incomes. I think that's really important. But I think transparency is very important as well.

Yeah. And I mean, I think for a lot of families getting hit with a bill like this because you're, kid has an accident, like this could, especially around the holiday season, this could really ruin a lot of plans and finances and stability for people. And like, it's so, it's like, I'm so cautious in talking about this because of the, like, the place we are at financially. Like, this is, I'm so grateful that this isn't going to, this isn't a big deal. Like, but like, it's just like, I think about us like five years ago I think about other families I'm friends with and I'm like this would this would be really really hard I don't know what we can do honestly you guys to help make this

better in America so I guess that's why we're talking about it because I think it's something that really does need to change well because also let's we can say it we're sitting on a 32000 $35,000 bill for the miscarriage right now yeah is it 35000 well the first see that's the other thing you don't know when they're going to stop we just got a bill last week about Griffin's birth, which was over three years ago, for my epidural, just got a bill for that, for the anesthesia, which was over 4,000. And the insurance and the hospital are still disputing that, right? No, I think that they're done, and now it's 4,000 for that.

That's what I'm assuming. They make it so complicated and confusing as well, because it's to their advantage, because then you're confused and you're like, I guess this is just what I owe, but you don't even know what's going on, which isn't, I'm also, like, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I have a college degree like I no guys avie's really freaking smart and I feel like handling these things and the dispute between the hospital's insurance has been very confusing all the jargon all of the different rules and regulations and then HIPAA gets in the way only when it's to the advantage of the health care system and not in my best interest which is ridiculous that's ridiculous

yeah because HIPA didn't protect me in other situations that would like that would actually be at my advantage. So, I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of things. I'm like, this is just a total mess. But, and I know that we're not the first people to come upon this. But I just hope that we can be another voice in saying that, like, this system is really messed up. And also we, okay, well, so for my miscarriage, we received three bills. One of them was over $32,000. Yeah. The others were over $1,000. And those are fine and done bills. And actually at this point, they're past due. because I'm just like I can't even mentally begin to tackle those bills and look through that with everything like I'm already dealing with on my end from those days in the hospital and like from everything sorting through that I'm like wow obviously people need to be compensated for the health care that they did for me that day I'm not saying that I'm not mad at the doctors I'm not mad at the nurses I'm actually so incredibly grateful for them but I also know that this isn't going in their pockets yeah so it's like it's like it's It's just so messed up.

But yeah, right now we're sitting on like, let's be honest. We owe. And you add it up. So we have anesthesia for four grand. We have miscarriage, which is 35 grand. Yeah. And then we have this, which is six. Two grand.

Sorry, six grand and 6,200. So, yeah, we're looking at 45 grand. Did I do the math right? Yeah. Six plus four is 10. And guess what? We're also healthy individuals with very, like, very little preexisting conditions. It's like imagine people that find themselves with like needing long-term care.

Yeah. Or like forever care. Like think about people that have like conditions that are just like, like just, they just live with this. That's the reality of their everyday life. Yeah. This is, that's crippling. And I just spoke with someone today who was just revealing, revealing to me out of just, I don't know, it was very vulnerable, vulnerable of them to share this.

They're like, I can't afford medical insurance right now. And I said that's embarrassing for them. like no that should not be embarrassing that should not be embarrassing that that that is something that's just it just reveals like that people yeah I mean it is it's bizarre it is bizarre how can we make a difference here does anybody know of like maybe an expert we could bring on to the podcast to talk about like what can be done to fix the catastrophe that is the medical system in America I mean I personally I really am I love America I love capitalism but this is one area that I'm like, something's up here. Something is really messed up. Everyday people in

America cannot afford basic medical care and they go into debt for it, right? That's a problem. That should not be happening. And something I did realize. So I guess because we are on a health share, they did bill us for self-pay. So I'm guessing this would be lower if we did have like a quote unquote official insurance because we have to send this to our health here to see what our health share will cover first. But just to give you guys an itemized breakdown of what everything is, because this is what I'm curious about. So the initial charge, it says total fees, $9,605.50. So of that, $9,222.50 was hospital fees. And then physician fees were $383. So it seems like, like, yeah, the physician, you're talking about how you're thankful for the physicians and everything.

they're the comparison between do i believe that that's what's actually going to them no they're on a salary okay but i'm just saying like i don't think it's the physicians it's it's not the workers that are the problem it's the system it's exactly that's the big it's the big business of the hospital and how they're just gouging money from everyone because they can't times have we been looking at a bill and basic things like ibuprofen is like $400. Something crazy. Like. But so anyway, that was the, that was the initial cost, which I'm sure.

And it's because of insurance too that they've had to be, they've had to find all these loopholes. The whole system is messy. I don't know what the solution is. But look at this though. Because we're, because they build us as self pay, then they charge a, they give us a discount of $3,200, $3,3,323. But I guarantee if I talk to them and I'm like, hey, this is really high. Like, and if I was like smart enough, I could, they could also like, I don't know. It's weird too that if you call, you can negotiate the bill down.

If you get the bill itemized, that usually gets the bill to go down. Oftentimes, they'll even ask what, how much money you make because then that. Every time, I'm telling you, every time they've asked me that. Which is stupid. It shouldn't, it shouldn't matter how much money you make. They should have a fair price for everyone. And you also don't know the price of things before you're getting the care. When we look at the description, there's all these like codes.

There's all these like things. I don't even know what they mean. But it says ED visit care level three. That's for $9,22.50. Then we have the discount. That was like $3,000 and some change. And then if I go to the next page, it gets weird because then they have this whole breakdown.

Like the majority of the breakdowns they have for why things cost what they cost is just is like stuff that's relatively inexpensive compared to the big hospital charge. So the first thing is emergency department visit low MDM. I'm guessing this is for, oh, this is the physician. So that was charged for $219. Then next was CT head slash brain with, it says W slash O contrast material. That's for $164. And then they put in a random discount at the end. They total that up. Then they put in a random discount and they say your responsibility for charges billed by your physician is $287.25. The other weird thing is when you go over to the bill right here, when the main page that gave us what we paid after, like what we owe after the discount, it says fees historically vary from

$6,048 to $19,722. BS, there is no way that a three-hour emergency room visit with one CT skin and some medicine to help with like the the stapling process, there's no way that that's a nearly $20,000 bill. Maybe in, in 2100, maybe, you know, 75 years from now when inflation goes crazy, sure, that's insane. Like I just, I agree with you, Abby, that I think all of this is just like made up. I feel like they just like make up these numbers and are like, how much money can we get for these services that we're providing? I also think that this could be an issue of consent in my opinion because when we were in the hospital, this is in reference to the miscarriage, they're coming in constantly asking me questions. Like, do you want this? Do you want this?

I'm making this decision completely blind in my opinion. I don't think that this is consent because I received residual bills. So I received the big $32,000 one, which was a bunch of other things. But then the two other bills that were both over $1,000 were for pain medications, that they kept coming in and being like, do you want this? Which is so nice that the nurses wanted me to be comfortable but me asking them asking me that question and not also saying oh this is $1,900 for this. This second dose is $1,200. Yeah. I don't think that my consent is actually full consent because I'm not agreeing to the full breadth of what this is going to mean for me down the line. And so what I have made decisions differently based on the price of things potentially.

Going back to Springfield, driving by where we used to live and knowing. how little money we had then, getting a bill like we're getting now would have devastated us financially then. It would have set us back so bad. And I think there are ways to... It would have set us back for years.

It would have probably made us change our family planning plan because what have set us back. And think about people that are on a standard salary that are already... They're having all these expenses that aren't going to change. but now they have this bill that they have to chip away at, that would take years. And Abby, we were really smart. Like, we were both honor students.

We both had 4.0s. We both got scholarships for college. We both got 28s on the ACT. Like, we're not dumb people. Okay, if you look at our grades or whatever, we're not dumb people. But, like, this medical stuff has been a nightmare for us to figure it out when it comes to to dealing with insurance and hospitals battling it out. That's why we're on a health share.

because it got so exhausting dealing with that where like maybe this health share will be easier. We have some friends that are also self-employed. They're on a health share and it's not been, it's been fine for them. For like, okay, that's better than this crap show we're dealing with. But yeah, I think the reason that I wanted to talk about this

is just because, yeah, looking back to where we were at six years ago as newlyweds in Springfield living in low-income housing, these medical bills that we are having to pay right now would have devastated. It would have changed the trajectory of our life. They would have decimated us. would have waited to have kids a lot longer we would have probably not but felt as free to have

other kids like it changes people's lives yeah and we deserve transparent pricing we deserve like to give full consent we deserve to like these things are just like they're they're taking it like any other realm you look in they're you're not going to go to the grocery store and you're not going to be like, I need bread, and they're like, okay, we'll get your bread. And then you don't know how much that bread's going to cost. And guess what? If the grocery store got to decide what type of bread to sell you, they're going to sell you the bread that has the highest margin for them.

They're going to sell you the product where they make the most money. And that's exactly what the hospitals are doing. And the problem is, too, is that like, sorry, I lost. No, you're good. That's what bothers me. Name another, name another industry where your goods and services, you don't know when you're agreeing to it. Yeah. What it's going to cost.

You don't really have a choice. You don't feel like you have a choice in whether or not you receive those goods and services. And like, then you're left months. And you also won't know for months. Yeah. Well, I feel like it's, it's like to be smart enough to be able to make sure everything is crossed and their insurance did this and they didn't overcharge you for this. You have to double check on them. Like, that's.

crazy. I feel like it's highway robbery. Like, I feel like it's a legal way that that companies are able to rob the American people. Here's the thing. I have no idea how to fix it. I'm not that smart. I'm not well-versed in every area of this, but I just, I know that we're not the only family affected by this. And a lot, we know a lot of people personally that this is like affecting their daily life in a big way. And like, because we have this audience, like it has blessed us in so many ways where this is not detrimental to our family but also it means that we have a lot of ears listening to us

and maybe the right ear can listen that can just be or just be another voice that can just say like hey this is an area where there needs to be change and other countries have figured it out too so our editor for the podcast and Elo he laughs when we talk about this stuff to our podcast editor because yeah he lives in Australia

and there they have free medical care I'm really grateful that we have. I think that we have great medical care. I care a lot about like the people that decide to like work on in their in the nights and on holidays and in the evenings and like residency, our friends going through residence is brutal. It's not them. And I'm so thankful for the health care workers. It's not the health care workers.

It's this larger ominous big industry and big farm. I don't know what it is. But there's just like these other, these other factors at play that are just like have purposely like our face. faceless and like just changing the realities for people. And I also just want to circle back and just make sure we drive home the point that the most important thing was that our son was taken care of. And thank God it was relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. Definitely major in my heart.

Like, oh my gosh, so scary. And it just hurt my heart so much that he was in pain and he was scared. But literally, he was so tough. Yeah, two hours later he was actually like, no that night that night he was back to normal practically it was crazy he's so resilient kids are so tough um like it did not even it doesn't even face him we just keep telling him like you're so tough and he's like yeah he like feels really proud of himself but also like the main thing is that i'm so glad we got good care and that he's taken care of and that where everything is

fine and also like even to my miscarriage i feel like i had really good medical care yeah um But this is also like a dark side of it that like sneaks up. Yeah. And I'll never forget like literally 10 days after we delivered our daughter. Texts in my phone like, oh, you owe $35,000. And I know that I'm not the only person that has received a bill after something like that. A bill like that after something like that. And the fact of the matter is a lot of people are going to the hospital for reasons that they did not choose accidents or like just really.

unfortunate health circumstances and this is just the horrible cherry on top of it all is that it's also financially like can be ruined for people so i'm hoping fingers crossed that the health share pulls through that we can significantly reduce all these medical bills that we owe because i want to say the ones that we've received i don't think they're covering my miscarriage yeah why um something about not covering unfair pricing so yeah what yeah how do you know did you already talk to the health share um i've kind of avoided it at this point is it just giving you a lot of stress yeah and i also just like don't want to let me let me let me talk to them or i guess you'll just have to approve that's a great instance where hippa does not help me out that's what sucks so the reason abby deals with

a lot of our health health insurance health share stuff is because i would hit roadblock after roadblock when I was trying to handle this in the past because they won't talk to me. They're like, we need, we need your wife on the phone because I was talking about her like the pregnancy appointments. It was all stuff that had to do with Abby. So they wouldn't they wouldn't let me handle it. So hopefully you can just give me, give verbal approval over the phone and then I can handle it. It's just it's another layer of stress and sadness and fear to add. And I think that's not isolated to miscarriage. That's a lot of health circumstances that people find them in. They're like, I'm already stressed about my health and, like, what this could mean for my future

and just add this layer of finances, massive financial, on, what's the word? I don't know what you're saying. Like, a disproportionate financial burden, too. Like, that's crazy. That's not fair. Well, guys, thank you for listening in. If you can think of anything productive that we can do on this show or on our platforms to help make a difference in the unfair. medical system that we have in America, please let us know. I want to see change in this.

I, it bothers me that there's people that like are just swimming in medical debt. And that's just wrong, in my opinion. I love America. I love our country. I just think that in the wealthiest country in the world, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, that there's, there's no reason we can't have some basic medical needs that are just like covered through our tax dollars. Or affordable. Just make it affordable. maybe yeah how about we start there how don't we just start making it affordable maybe yeah maybe before jump into the free

healthcare thing we just go to like hey let's make this affordable literally earlier in this podcast I was like don't talk about it unless you don't know about it but here we are here I am I don't know but I actually do kind of know just from like our own personal experience being on this receiving into things yeah anyway

I don't know if they could come up with a good reason why they need $35,000 I would like to know that yeah anyway all right guys we love you we are going to go hug our sweet pretzel dog and play with our kids so yeah thanks for being here and we'll see you in another episode of unplanned thanks guys