u/goodgossip1024

I am 27 weeks pregnant and (very sadly) don’t have a huge appetite right now, but it’s my birthday on Wednesday and I’m determined to enjoy a fancy meal out!

My husband and I currently have reservations at both Restaurant Olivia and Wildflower, and it’s crunch time for deciding on one and canceling the other. We ate at Restaurant Olivia 5 months ago for his birthday and thoroughly enjoyed the pasta tasting menu (though I found the atmosphere of the restaurant itself a little cold/bare). I love the idea of many of the dishes they have on the summer menu. We’ve never eaten at Wildflower but the dishes would typically be up my (non-pregnant) alley and I love how cozy and intimate the restaurant looks from its photos.

Any recommendations from folks? My husband has proven to be no help and just keeps asking me whether or not I’m in the mood for pasta 😅

UPDATE: THANKS ALL! Wildflower it is 💐 Looking forward to a warm and cozy environment and a delicious meal to celebrate my last birthday before becoming a mom!

My husband and I are expecting a baby in November. It will be our first. We live in the US, in Colorado. Right now, we each are covered individually through our respective employer-provided health insurance plans. We are trying to decide whose plan the baby should be added to after birth, and whether we should switch him to the other parent's plan in the new year. 

By the time of delivery, it is very likely that I will have met my individual $3,750 out-of-pocket maximum for the year (or, at the most, have only a couple hundred dollars left of it). If the baby is added to my plan after birth, though, my out-of-pocket maximum for employee + dependent coverage jumps to $7,500, which means that we are looking at having to pay, at most, $3,750 for mine + baby's stay/care in the hospital. The current benefit year will then end for me on 12/31, and a new one will begin on 1/1/27. If baby is on my plan in the new benefit year, the deductible for employee + dependent coverage will be $750.

My husband has had hardly any medical expenses this year, and so he is still responsible for a large proportion of his individual $1,250 deductible. But, his new benefit year just started on 7/1, and so it will not end until 6/30/27. If baby is added to my husband's plan after birth, his deductible for employee + dependent coverage jumps to $2,500 (with an OOP maximum of $9,000). I am not really clear on what we can expect the bill to amount to for only baby's stay/care in the hospital, but I assume we should be prepared to have to pay at least $2,500 towards the deductible.

An additional layer here is that the cost of adding baby to either plan is not equal. If baby is added to my plan, it will cost us $384.72 monthly; whereas, if baby is added to my husband's plan, it will cost us $84.96 monthly. My individual health care is covered in full by my employer, so adding baby to my plan would be a new $384.72 expense. My husband already pays $47/month into his individual plan, so adding baby to his plan would really just mean an additional $37.96 expense. 

My inclination is that we should add the baby to my husband's plan at birth and keep him on there even in the new year when we'd have the option of switching him over to my plan. That way we pay (nearly) nothing for my delivery stay/care in the hospital, pay a good chunk towards the deductible of my husband's plan only 4.5 months into his benefit year, and then have mostly only co-pays to pay for baby's first 7.5 months of doctor's visits. But, do others agree? This whole situation feels like such a complicated puzzle to put together!