Sally Redux

Congrats PepsiChic!

PepsiChic

i dont know if you've heard about Eats On Feets, they have a facebook group, its to donate breastmilk to other mums, theres a US, Uk group etc, its for mums who cant afford to pay the breastmilk bank (which i think was $1.75 per ounce) If you have milk in storage you dont need i highly recommend them for helping out other mums!



Thankyou!

Bob

It's the living in the UK thing though, we'd not be allowed to, just like with blood.

Anyway, the first night went well. No apnoea episodes, but the monitor did give false alarms about 2-3 times an hour, which was a chore, as lit up as that thing is, the reset button to switch the alarm off isn't lit, and it's right next to the power button and if you hit the power button, it goes into a rage, unless you then hit the reset button in a certain sequence, anti child tampering, it's annoying.

It's weird how baby also doesn't really cry, much, at all. She won't till a couple weeks past her due date apparently, so it's weird having to have an alarm clock go off at 4 hour intervals to wake her/us up and feed her.

First dose of caffeine this morning went well. We'll do the vitamins and iron over lunch at the next feeding.

PepsiChic

they do dont do testing or have requirements like the milk bank. its all free service.

Bob

Hmmm....weird.

There's only one place in New England that collects milk, that you're allowed to donate to and everything has to be screened here. Big part of it is probably liability though.

PepsiChic

heres a link to it i think

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Eat...app_7146470109

theres a global tab and then you can select the state if its in the list.

Bob

Cheers for that, will check it out

So we just had the home nurse visit.

She had a trainee with her and they were both really lovely. They did a whole check up, measured the baby, weight, breathing, checked our monitor and answered questions we had. She also suggested we talk to our doctor who we're seeing tomorrow about ditching the monitor as it's not really needed, so we'll see.

This visit apparently was 100% covered by our insurance and there's the option of having a few more visits if we wanted them, but not sure if those would be 100% covered, we'll see but we don't feel we need the visits, right now at least.

The breathing monitor, it's utter rubbish. Using new set of leads, it'll be fine for about 2 hours, then it'll go off, then it'll go off after 20 mins and then go off regularly but baby hasn't had any episodes.

ann m

OMG - what would a single mum do, if she was laid up in hospital too for example? Your wife is lucky to have you stressing, phoning and sorting out for her. What a bureaucratic nightmare

AmerLisa

That's interesting. I didn't even know they had those or there was that option. Good to hear that there is. I know I appreciated it when I had the midwife come out in the UK for my last baby. Would have loved to have had that option when I had my other children as I was a very young mother with no mother to guide me.

Glad to hear your baby came home, Bob. The picture of the two girls are adorable.

Bob

The hospital doc recommendation to the insurance company, who approved it, only because we have a home breathing monitor and a premie, other wise we'd not be allowed it, or more to the point we'd have to arrange and pay it for ourselves.

I don't think the insurance would cover 100% for further visits and as we didn't think we needed more, we'd not looked into it. Don't know how much this one cost through this agency, but when we asked about it on our first child, which we didn't need, so we'd have to have paid that our selves we were quoted $1000 for a home visit.

@Ann - The hospital social worker helped us out loads and I'm sure that's what would probably happen. It's not like you're in the hospital long anyway, 48 hours max on a normal delivery. It is a headache though

Bob

So we had our first doctors visit. Went well...bit annoyed that they no longer accept cash, only had $20 in cash for the co-pay, but anyway.

He wanted to see the baby weekly, because week 1 and 2 were in hospital, and would usually have week 4, 2 and 4 month visits, but it'll be weekly as she was premie for the next 6 weeks at least. Bit of a bugger having to stump the $20 co-pay each time, but there you go.

He said he'll be looking into the cold vaccine that she was given in the hospital, RSV? Can't remember, but it was because she was a premie, he thinks she won't need any more shots because she isn't that tiny or suffering anything wrong with her lungs, but if he thinks she will need it, he'll fight the insurance to get it because they usually don't cover a second dose and it's very expensive.

He also said he hasn't had much luck of getting the 6 week pulmonary test done at our hospital, usually ends up getting done at the Children's Hospital in Boston, which would be a chore, but potentially that could also be set up by the rental people, but the test is usually better done at the hospital than at home. It's the breathing set up over night.

Potentially might have a ultrasound done on the hips at the hospital too, because she has narrow hips, but it's not a concern right now and will usually correct itself when more weight and muscle have been put on, but it was a consideration.

So we have all the appointments arranged, some in ungodly unsocial hours though and other people are probably getting punted about, but there you go.

We also went to the chemist to get our refund on the caffeine and they refused to give it to us, giving us a feeble excuse of saying that it was a compound that they made and the insurance wasn't covering it. Which is rubbish because our insurance have already confirmed it is covered.

It's only a $15 refund, but we're pursuing it now out of principle because the woman was such an annoying cow about it.

Bob

So we've gotten another bill from the hospital, this was pre delivery, one of the scans cost $1170 a lab test was $135 and a half hour clinic visit which was another scan when the missus did her glucose test was $2480.

We owe $200 of that.

Sally Redux

Is it just 'think of a number'???????

Bob

I'm thinking so. $2.5K for half an hour of a doctor and nurses time, split down the middle between them is a little bit mental, even covering any cost of rental equipment and insurance etc.

Especially as that was the place willing to do extra unneeded scans for a grand a pop because our insurance covered them

Bob

So we had our second weekly doctors visit.

Went well, 7 lbs 1oz...and we might be able to not bother go see him every week, depending on how she is doing next week...which will be great because this whole $25 a co-pay is adding up.

The doctor is also going to try and help get our caffeine prescription refunded. The problem with it, it's a compound and the chemist gave the code for the raw ingredients which the insurance covers, but they don't cover the homemade compound, they only cover certain chemists, so that compound code we were then given afterwards was a waste, the chemist basically knew they were screwing us here. We might be able to get a refund from insurance, we'll see.

There's only a few compound chemists covered, luckily there's one not to far from where we live, most are in Waltham, Watertown area, which is about 45 odd mins away.

Doctor also wrote us a prescription for the premie formula, no idea how that'll work, but that's for us to battle with the insurance to see if they'll cover it all or part of the script. We'll see...but it was nice he didn't have a problem writing it.

Also had the second Hep B jab, which went well.

No more bills this week either.

Apria, the rental people have been rubbish in sending us replacement leads, taking a week and still none. Insurance folks had a conference call with them to try sort it out....muppets is all I can say.