If you have decided that you want your tubes untied to either have another child or for relief of post tubal ligation syndrome, then funding for tubal reversal becomes one of your major considerations. With tubal reversals being in the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars, most women cannot afford to pay the costs out of pocket.

This means most women will be searching for some other way to come up with the requisite money to pay the doctor’s fees and all other associated costs such as the anesthesiologist and surgical facility. While having the full amount in one’s bank account would be the best scenario, it usually doesn’t happen that way. There are more or less eight ways to come up with the amount of your tubal reversal costs.

First is the good old saving for a rainy day. You simply begin to put the extra money you have every month aside in a savings account. I would go so far as to even suggest a savings account just for the purpose of saving for this procedure. If you mix it up into your regular savings account, you just might “accidentally” spend in on whatever comes up. If you don’t have extra or think you don’t, then it’s time to look into the various budget cutting and controlling methods that abound on the web. Do you really need cable TV or that extra latte every day?

Next is a version of the first in that you will end up saving to come up with the full amount. In this version, you go out and get a job. If necessary, you get a second job. Then put that money aside into your savings account till you have the full amount all saved up.

If you use a top notch surgeon like Dr. Gary S. Berger of Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center, you might be able to create a payment plan with the surgeon’s office. His system begins with an initial payment of $250 to open the account. After that, you send in payments of any amount you want or can as often as you would like. Your surgeon may have a different system set up. If you can, do it weekly. That gets the money out of your hands and into a special account where you can’t dip into it for the winter snow tires or whatever. Think of it as a special baby layaway plan.

Some women use their family’s income tax refund to pay for the tubal reversal surgery. Depending upon your personal situation, you might have to wait a few years if just depending upon a tax refund. This is why some will use their tax refund to supplement their savings plan.

Many people will think about insurance paying for the procedure as their first thought when looking at funding for tubal reversal. Some insurance companies will cover the surgery as part of their plan. However, if someone at your insurance carrier says they will, get it in writing. You may find that one person at the company says, “Yes”, and then the next will say, “No.” There are too many cases of a woman going in for the surgery thinking it was covered only to find out after wards that the insurance would pay nothing. Get it in writing!

You will find that most insurance companies will not cover it as it is considered an elective surgery. However, there are some possible, and I stress possible, ways around this. If the reason you are wanting the tubal reversal is for alleviation of symptoms of post tubal ligation syndrome, then getting you primary doctor to say that repairing your tubes is necessary might be one way to get insurance to pay for it, maybe even 100%. The other way that is possible to get some of the cost reimbursed is if there is a cap on your medical out-of-pocket expenses where the insurance company picks up the amount over the cap. You will have to check your own policy to see about this.

Lacking health insurance to pay for the tubal ligation reversal, you might be lucky enough to have a flexible spending account for health at your or your husband’s employment. Some of these will allow you to take out the full amount in advance. You’ll just have to see what the particulars are during your enrollment season. As the amount you pay into the flex spending account is pulled from the paycheck before you ever see it, you most likely won’t even notice it.

Another such source from your work would be taking out a 401(k) or IRA to pay for the full cost. You will end up paying a penalty and that money won’t be building your retirement so you will just have to decide what is most important to you. If it’s for ptls relief, I know what I would choose.

Lastly is using your credit card in some form. It could be that your doctor will accept your credit card. If he does not, then maybe you can get a cash advance to pay for the surgery. However, be very aware of the high interest rate you may have to make paying back this advance. Make very sure you pay higher than minimum monthly payments on your credit card or you will be paying a very long time for the surgery. It might also be possible to use your credit card to “purchase” a cashier’s check to pay for your tubal reversal.

Hopefully one of the above ideas will be the right funding for tubal reversal for you. Decide upon the one that best fits your lifestyle and situation. Only you know what is right for you.

Copyright 2008, Sandra Wilson

By: Sandra Wilson

It seems that more often than not men are forgotten when it comes to motherhood, parenthood and post-natal depression. We so often hear about the effects of having children on women but we so rarely hear about how it effects the men. Perhaps then we need to include the men a little more, listen to what they have to say and have a better understanding of how we can help them so that they in turn can help themselves and help us as mothers. If we all try to work together instead of against each other, then maybe the journey through post-natal depression my be a little easier to bear on each of us.

We often forget that men too need to be included as responsible parents and considered when it comes to how each individual in the family unit is coping with this new being in their life. After all the men are affected too, when it comes to sleep, the state of the home, the finances and the overall running of the household. Men too are right there with us, but so often we forget that they too could be finding this whole parenthood thing a little harder than they expected too.

Antenatal classes need to spend more time planning for the before and after the birth and how they can better educate couples to deal with this total upheaval of their nice and once ordered routine. Systems should be in place to provide men and women with some assistance in communication skills, parenting skills and overall life skills in dealing with a whole new dynamic and the separateness that each partner can feel from each other once a baby comes into their life.

Fathers as much as mothers miss out on companionship and intimacy when a baby comes along, but they miss out in different way and therefore feel the pain differently too. Women at least are often able to express how they are or are not coping, but men are expected to just continue on with life as normal, no matter how crazy it can sometimes seem at home. Having said all that however, a woman also needs a mans support if she is suffering from post-natal depression and she doesn’t need to be told to just ‘snap out of it.’

There definitely needs to be more done to give women and their partners greater understanding of postnatal depression and the signs to look out for. This should be discussed in ante-natal classes, with GP’s and obstetricians, with women and their partners being given as much information as available to prepare them for the potential onslaught of post-natal depression. Families need to be aware of this illness in the early stages of pregnancy, they need to be able to know what to look out for and if the illness does occur then they need to be able to know where to go to get help.

In my ante-natal class-it was mainly all about the birth and then a little bit on the different emotions you may go through. I’d barely even heard of post-natal depression and certainly had no idea what to look for and unfortunately many of my friends were the same.

Governments too need to spend more money assisting hospitals researching and offering greater information trying to prevent post-natal depression rather than having to treat it. Perhaps the government may one day realize that in fact they are handing over more money to deal with the ever increasing rate of Post-natal depression, and as a result start increasing services, such as sleep schools, longer stays in hospitals and maternal health nurse visits to the home.

Maternal health centers too should be spending less time on the insignificant sessions that they provide and spend more time on how to recognize post-natal depression and what to do and where to go if you think you are suffering from the illness. Men too should be included in at least 1 or 2 of these sessions, so that they too are not always kept in the dark.

Let’s start providing more help on preventing this illness, rather than treating it. Perhaps if we start doing things the right way, people won’t be so ashamed to talk about post-natal depression when and if they do get ‘hit’ with this illness.

By: M Walker

The Chopra Center for Wellbeing was started in 1996 by Deepak Chopra, M.D and David Simon, M.D. The goal of the center is to promote a holistic approach to health and introduce an alternative method to wellness by combining the best of western medicine with the best of other medical traditions from around the world. The Chopra Center offers a wide variety of programs, workshops and courses and brings a fresh approach to the mind body spirit connection. Now the Chopra Center for Wellbeing has endorsed a third party product for the first time ever. The product and the company producing it are both known as Zrii. Zrii juice is mainly made up of the amalaki fruit known and used for thousands of years in ayurveda. It cannot be easily eaten raw because it is a bitter fruit but now it is brought to us in a great-tasting health juice.

Amalaki has the highest known natural content of Vitamin C. It also contains many phytonutrients and other antioxidants which support the systems of the body. Bill Farley the founder of Zrii met with the Chopra Center for Wellbeing in September 2006 and found out about Amalaki from them. This fruit is one of the most used ingredients in ayurvedic medicine. Ayurveda started in the ancient traditions of India over 5000 years ago and is now one of the leading forms of alternative medicine in the West. Ayurveda means “the science of life” and its basic principles state that nothing in the universe exists in isolation.

Everything is connected and has an immense effect on your health. What you eat, who you interact with or where you work all affect you because all things are essentially made up of the same elements-air, fire, water, space and earth. Ayurveda believes that wellness and health is not just a result of the absence of disease in the body. It is also a result of a balance in mind body and spirit. The Chopra Center is a proponent of this balancing act along with the right mix of Western medicine and that is why they endorse Zrii juice. The amalaki fruit in Zrii acts to restore this balance in many ways and leads to good health.

Zrii is supported by the Chopra Center for Wellbeing also because it is formulated by a team of world class Western physicians, top Ayurvedic physicians and scholars and world renowned chemists and nutritionists. After months of testing and formulating the team has come up with a perfect combination. The end result is a highly complementary blend of amalaki and six other ingredients Turmeric, Tulsi, Schizandra, Jujube, Haritaki and Ginger. These ingredients have been found to unlock all the healing properties of Amalaki and support it in a way that covers a broader spectrum of conditions. The amalaki is grown in a completely organic manner and in soil with high nutrient concentrations at the foot of the Himalayas. It is grown without the use of pesticides or any other chemicals, hand picked and processed by cold pressing to ensure that the whole fruit is utilized.

By: Marcus Elford