Pennies From Heaven

Today is a great day. First off, the Wings won last night, so we went to bed in a good mood. Then today, we roll into the hospital for our morning visit with Leo thinking it would be an ordinary morning of changing diapers, taking his temp and doing some skin-to-skin. But when we arrived the nurse said that today Leo was having his PICC line removed! And that we could give him a bath! Needless to say, these seemingly small things make us very, very happy. His PICC line is the IV in his arm that's been giving him the gatorade stuff. He's doing so well on his feeds that they can take that out...one step closer to free range babyhood. And then to follow that with a bath?!?!? Well, this was shaping up to be one fantastic morning.

So the bath was high comedy. Leo has to have all of his sensors and other things stuck to him removed, and then he can come out and be bathed in a small little plastic bin. Note to new/expectant parents: As with so much of the baby crap we are led to believe we need, you probably don't need anything super fancy for bathing your newborn...I'm now thinking the kitchen sink literally would do quite nicely. So we start at his face and work our way down, Jay and I taking turns wiping his parts ("I want to wipe that, no me!"), getting into the creases (he now has chub!), finally working our way to the nether parts and then washing his head (another note, the head is last so they don't get as cold, good tip!). And then it was on to Dad's chest for snuggle time. And he was out...Leo that is.

So as we're sitting there chatting, the very nice social worker lady comes over to talk to us. One of the many things we love about Swedish is that they have a full team of folks at our disposal - therapists, social workers, lactation (even though they're weird), etc. - all there to help us out however we need. It's pretty fantastic. So anyway, social worker lady asks us if we're going to apply for Medicaid. Um, Medicaid? No, we have insurance. Oh, this is supplemental, for Leo. And it covers whatever your insurance doesn't...deductibles, out of pocket maximums, whatever percentage your insurance won't cover, etc. UM, EXCUSE ME?!?!?! Oh yes, most everyone who goes through the NICU applies for it, unless you're with Microsoft or Boeing or the government and have 100% coverage for everything. OH MY GOD! SERIOUSLY!?!? But we have jobs and income, surely it doesn't apply to us. No, it does, it's not based on your income but on Leo's. So unless he has a trust fund set up somewhere that would count as "income" (I hold back outright laughter at this) he's covered. I'll get you the paperwork and you can fill it out and give it back to me and I'll handle getting it filed. Um, OK - that would be awesome! OH MY GOD! WE JUST WON THE LOTTERY!!! While this may seem like perhaps an overstatement, it's not and let me tell you why. We found out today that the NICU daily bill is roughly $8,000...just to be in the NICU each day. Yes, $8,000 - A DAY. In addition are all the individual doctors' costs, lab tests, procedures, etc. And trust me there are a lot of them. So even if you have really solid insurance, as we do, you're likely looking at a 10% bill unless you really do have Cadillac stuff that covers everything at 100%. Let's do some quick math shall we? $8K/day x 60 days = OH S&*%. OH S&*% x 10% = HOLY CRAP. HOLY CRAP, it turns out, is likely now covered by this little known Washington State Medicaid program. Dear sweet baby Jesus in heaven thank you for the government. And I will repeat this statement in the face of anyone who would like to tell me this isn't a good thing. So there.

So tonight we will celebrate this little victory in our life with some roasted lamb, potatoes with dill and roasted asparagus. And I will have some wine. And it will be good. And hopefully we won't have a Debbie Downer day tomorrow...fingers crossed.

And now, for some pictures from this morning's festivities...Enjoy!