Leslie

You are far too nice, Bob. I'll have to be vicariously belligerent for you.

Bob

Well I'm taking a deep breath and hoping we can square it all away tomorrow...and planning what I can swipe from the hospital while I'm there

lonestargirl

Do your hospital do the footprint birth certificates? I was able to add Liam to the insurance with just that - we only got his official state birth cert this week.
Regarding the SSN timeline he was born on the 7th, SSN card dated 14th and arrived in the mail 22nd. Hopefully hers will arrive soon.

Bob

Nope, they don't do that. They don't actually issue anything at the hospital. I don't know if that's a hospital thing or a state thing though.

nethead

OMG Bob, you're taking this very well, I would be going crazy by now. What a bunch of ****tards.

Englishmum

Can't they expedite a birth certificate?

I know this can be done with US passports.

Might be worth calling a Congressman or Representative or whatever/whomever can put pressure on the office which issues birth certificates...?

Bob

Don't think so, because there's only one little old knuckle working the office in town and she's on furlough, hence the back log.

Anyway, think we got stuff squared away today.

Hospital social worker person faxed a letter to insurance and after some ping ponging, the little one was being put on the insurance today, but won't be on the system till tomorrow because weirdly the system only updates at midnight? Weird, but because of that, medical rental people won't get paid till Thursday and they'll now be able to deliver a monitor on Friday, after lunch, to the hospital and show us how to use it.

For some reason, not sure who's, but liability means the baby needs to be kept on the rental unit at the hospital for 24 hours, and because that puts it past the 10:30 discharge and it's a weekend, baby can't be discharged till Sunday, or Monday if we prefer.

The hospital will give us the Vitamin D, not sure about the Iron. We have a prescription for the caffeine written out and recommended getting it from the chemist up the road from the hospital as they know what the hospital gives, so the right strength/mix. Once we've got that and been shown how to use it etc, we can get a refill at our local chemist in town.

Our PCP who is also the peds doc for the little ones is visiting sometime before discharge and then we have to go see him after discharge, soon as we could which is Wednesday. That's to check up on the caffeine and general health.

In a months time, the little one has to go back for some cold type vaccine top up as she's getting a first job before discharge.

Also at week 44, gestational age, she will have to spend the night at the hospital, I think as a outpatient kids section? Not sure, but that's so she is hooked up to heart/lung monitor to see her breathing capacity over night and see if she can get off the caffeine, which she should be able to as it's standard process apparently. Mother can spend the night too.

The nurse has also given us another tub of premie formula and will try and swipe more each day. We checked at Hannafords and the 12 ounce powder tub is $16.

Our PCP should be able to write a prescription, which should help. Have to chuck the tub after 30 days of being open, but she'll only go through a tub, if that for the first couple of months and then a little bit more there after for a couple more months and then should be able to go on regular formula.

Oh and the breast milk bank, we can't donate the milk, because the missus has spent more than 3 months in Europe since 1980....bit like the blood/organ donation thing. So a tad daft, and a bugger as we're got about 70 odd ounces spare filling the freezer. At $45 an ounce, that would have been a huge chunk of change.

But at least I think we're getting everything sorted out and set for a Sunday or Monday discharge. Also we have to fax either HR or the insurance, or possibly both a copy of the babies SSN and/or Birth certificate once we get them.

Anian

My son's took a month to arrive after his birth. This meant we were a day late in adding him officially to the insurance so we had to pay all the costs and then claim them back (several thousands). It was a big pain but worked out in the end. Glad we had the breathing room in the bank account.

Bob

Went to the chemist the hospital recommends to get the caffeine prescription...it's a few mins away from the hospital, grotty little place. They wanted us to have it before a visit so they could show us how to use the dropper properly to get the right dose and double check the concentration etc, so we could use the bottle to show our local place if we needed a refil.

They didn't believe we had insurance so had to pay full price and will refund us in a few days if we come back, only $25 for the small bottle, but annoying all the same.

What was really annoying though, when we rang in the morning to ask if they needed 24 hrs notice or what have you, they said nope, they've got lots in stock and get a bottle while we wait in a few minutes.

Got there a couple hours later, then told we'd have to come back in 3-4 hours...so we did after the visit, and was still there for a half hour while they told us we weren't insured on the stuff, when we had confirmation from our insurance that it was covered.

Oh, the SSN arrived in the mail today as well which is handy.

Got another bill from the hospital, it was for something related to a scan from before we were admitted, so from one of the regular baby check ups. This was only for $125 and we owe $9.

Bob

So today we got the breathing monitor from Apria.

Turned out we didn't need to pay up front, which was nice...they'll either send us a on going bill, or if it'll only be a couple months as expected, they'll give us a bill when they pick the device back up, after the doctor sends in a discontinue order.

The thing is mobile, so a little smaller than the hospital unit and doesn't display the info on the unit itself, just gives up lit up alerts. We get 3 pounces of cables to hook up, and each pouch has 2 sets and we can call up and get more delivered within 1-2 business days depending on if we call before 2pm or not.

A nurse has been arranged to come by on Monday, following the Sunday discharge to check we've set the monitor up correctly and are using it properly. Apparently that's all they are there for, but our nurse said depending on who the agency sends, they can be clock watching and do just the job description, or we could get lucky and have a nice one that'll also check on baby and answer general questions. Just luck of the draw and usually it's unlucky because the agency doesn't give them much time to get around.

We've been given a stack of syringes to give the iron/vitamins/caffeine, well to measure exactly the doses, they'll get mixed with a smidge of milk when we give the doses. It's less scary now we've talked about it and done it ourselves.

The nurse said they should give us the iron and vitamins before we leave, but it depends on the nurse at the time, they should also give us more premie formula.

They'll do the 90 min car seat test tomorrow and aren't expecting any problems, and then they'll watch baby is okay for another 90 mins and there's some scale rating to say how well they do, it's standard on all babies before discharge, to see that they can cope being strapped in and not have their heads loll around to much etc.

Edit: to add, bugger me, that monitor is loud when it goes off....really loud, not just hear it from the next room, but across the whole condo loud.

Also the monitor is overly sensitive and can pick up mums heartbeat if snuggling, and if both fall a sleep it might not pick up problems, but healthy mums heartbeat should be below 80 which is what they set as the trip level, so hoping that won't be a problem.

And the cables, uber sticky, but they should last between a day and a week, depending on how often we take them off and how dry baby is.

We've also got to keep the apartment at 72F for the first week at least. That'll be painful, cost one, but more because we prefer it at 65F...our first daughter prefers to be running around naked when it's that warm, 72F should be more than interesting

Englishmum

OMG Bob - you and your wife must be Saints!

What a load of red tape you are having to go through.

Perhaps Michael Moore should update his "Sicko" documentary and show the experience the "Bob" family have had to endure.

(Have you at any time, thought - "why didn't we have this baby in England?" I'm sure I would have had that thought in my head )

I bet you can't wait to get your new baby home real soon Sending her a big ((((((hug))))))

Bob

It had crossed both of our minds a bit

The nurses, doctors and hospital have been really good though for the most part, but the red tape has been a little maddening. The end is in sight though, which if a relief, till the rest of the bills come in no doubt

Bob

So we got discharged today as they didn't see anything worth keeping her past 12pm and she passed the car seat test with flying colours.

We were given a little baby graduation certificate with a photo which was really cute, a nice baby story book, a pack of nappies, wipes, nappy cream, formula, her vitamins and iron, some more syringes for measuring the dose and everything in her crib, the snot suckers, dummies, even her knitted baby blankets that people make for the place.

We also got our first bill from NICU. For the initial assessment which was $1200 or so, and then roughly $435 per day for the doctors on call, for the first 4 days in NICU. $2700 total for that period and we owe $200 of that.

She was in NICU a day shy of 3 weeks.

PepsiChic

My experience difers from yours because i had NO insurance!

We ended up applying for financial aid from the hospital who took a bunch of paperwork like tax returns, last 3 wage slips, bank account statements and list of bills etc, and then told us they were covering the bill, which came to a total of $3500, it was a normal delivery, with no epi, no iv, no shots, no tests, no medical intervention (i wanted and had a natural birth)

I did have to go through the bill because at first it was $5000, they automatically add for everything of course, and i had everything i didnt need/use taken off.

we were in hospital for 24 hours, and my obgyn (who i had paid $2000 for separately) say we were fit to go home if i didnt want to stay the full 48 hours so we went, we were given all kind of diapers, and pacifiers (even though we told them we werent using them), and a bulb suctioner and the hat they put on the baby after birth, they also loaded us up with about 20 pre-made bottles of formula...but i BF, so we gave it all away to another lady who just had a baby.

the hospital was fantastic, clean and the staff were very friendly and did a great job, the room was a LDRP room so i didnt get moved about. it wasnt even the hospital the birth was planned in, but my obgyn was called there for an emergency c-section for triplets! so we drove 1 and a half hours to go to the hospital she was at.

(Barry Robert - named after my dad, born 6:38am july 18th, 7lbs 6oz at 40+6)

Bob

That's really good going

We're also breast feeding, but need to up the calories using premie formula, glad we got given a good chunk as that stuff ain't cheap.

Rather gutted we aren't allowed to donate breast milk, because after the hospital gave us back what we had brought in over the 3 weeks, there's easily a couple of grands worth sitting in the freezer