Sigh. The important bit is that there was nothing on the ultrasound to account for any kind of bleeding at all, and even after doing a pelvic exam and seeing the blood himself, the doctor assures us it's all fine. It was just a little bit of blood anyway, so they're thinking a small cervical blood vessel may have burst. Not an issue to worry about at all, and they're not even suggesting I stay off my feet.
They gave me some non-prescription pills that are meant to keep the uterus from contracting, but I've decided not to take them because contractions were not the cause, and it just felt like one of those "Give the nervous mom a sugar pill so she thinks she has some control" moments. I'm not a nervous mom (you can ask Goran yourself to see if he agrees!) and I'm under no illusions about being able to control this aspect of my body, so I just said thanks and will chuck them in the medicine basket to grow dusty. Maybe if I have a lot of uncomfortable BH cramps later on I'll dig 'em out.
Anyway, we still hadn't seen any bills so we asked them to please let us pay while there and they rung up a bill which, well, made my jaw drop. A good four times what we'd expected.
It seems that the price list that I was sent, which had only numbers and no currency listed, was a list of Euro prices, not PLN. Which, you know, makes Total sense in POLAND. Or not. And then they went ahead and billed us the Euro amount, but IN PLN, just to complicate matters. Also, they insisted on credit card payment rather than bank transfer, thus incurring further fees on our part for the conversions.
We were pissed. I felt misled and naive, and Goran was angry that they were trying to pull something dodgy. We ended up asking a colleague of Goran's, who's wife is an MD, what he'd have thought having received the same pricelist, and he agreed with us. To a point that he and his wife took it upon themselves to call the hospital and find out what the hell had transpired.
This morning I got a call from the director of the clinic, assuring me that they've talked with "your friend" and it was all their mistake and that she was shocked the price list had been sent without Euros mentioned, and they had stopped the transaction. We'll be re-billed in PLN and I just have to pop by tomorrow to run my card for the new amount. I'll also get contact info for the doctors I've seen there and can opt to either go to the doctor's private practice or just go through the regular switchboard at the hospital to book my appointments. All the costs will be the basic PLN prices from now on, and she apologised for the "confusion". Which no, it wasn't confusion, it was an attempt to bilk us out of several thousand US dollars, but as long as they're fixing it I'm willing to proceed. It's a good clinic and I like the medical professionals we've interacted with so far. I just don't trust their bookkeeping/billing ethics!
So that was yesterday. The light bleeding kept up most of yesterday but was gone by this morning. I feel fine and we're both relieved on the medical and financial sides of things. Just to add in something cute, Goran told Alexander that we'd been to "see the baby" while he was at school and he nodded knowingly and added, "Mommy docdoc". So he remembers and understands that to see the baby, we go to the doctor. It's weird, but I can't shake the feeling that he really does understand. I feel like he's too young to get it, but he keeps saying stuff that make me think he does.
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