Visit to the pediatrician's office

Yesterday was our first appointment with our local pediatrician's office. The exam went fine and they are glad to see that she is physically so healthy looking. Since birth, she has gained 2 ounces and gotten 3/4 of an inch longer. This was no surprise to us because since she started eating last week, she has become a pig and can often drink 5 + ounces per feeding instead of the 2-3 that the hospital told us to expect. I don't think those 2 weeks in the hospital will be holding back her growth! Her oxygen is good (96%) at a 1/8 liter per hour supplement, but started plummeting when they turned the oxygen off.

The doctor did clarify our restrictions, and they are more restrictive than I thought. Olivia needs to stay away from germs, dust, and smoke, so she wants us to pretty much quarantine Olivia inside our house for 2 months. We are supposed to limit her visitors to those who we "need" to see her and they have to change clothes and scrub before coming in (as do we each time we go out), no leaving the house with her unless it is really required and if we do then she needs a germ mask as well as having a blanket cover her carrier. We aren't supposed to take her to the doctor's anymore, so they scheduled a home healthcare nurse to come by twice a week. If she ever has to go in, they showed us a back door that we are supposed to use and we will be given an appointment time before they open so there are no sick kids around. She can't have any contact with kids (except Juuli who will have to disinfect after playing with any friends) or anyone who has been in contact with someone who may be sick. In addition we installed 3 HEPA filters in the house to keep the air clean and I installed an air conditioner upstairs so that we do not need to open windows to cool off. Petra and I are going to try to figure out a schedule so that she doesn't have to be the only one to stay inside at all times. It is especially hard with Juuli who needs to go play outside and get out of the house.

We started getting bills! Of course we are not paying the bulk of them since we have insurance (in the US, most people pay for medical insurance policies usually through their employer to cover most medical expenses since medical costs are so high here) but I wanted to share the figures so you can be as shocked as we are:

LA Medical Center for Petra $3,887
LA Medical Center for Olivia $6,350 (she was only there for 8 hours!)
Helecopter trip to Albuquerque $17,360 (yes, that is seventeen thousand dollars)

A friend of ours said that when their kid was hospitalized for a month at the same hospital in Albuquerque, it cost as much as their house cost! We have not been billed by the actual hospital yet, but $28k is a good start. We are "interested" to see what our copay is, but we don't expect it to be very much since our insurance is good.

I (Adam) went back to work today for a 1/2 day (in America, you are usually allowed 10 sick days per year if you are lucky) . I will probably continue 1/2 days this week so we can keep figuring things out at home. They were all very understanding and will be flexible about my work schedule as I need it. When I was there, it felt like I had been gone for months since so much had happened in our family since I was there last. In a way, it was nice to have a little normalcy though.

Olilvia is looking more and more like Julia did as a baby. We hope to get some more pics up this week. Juuli is still so excited to have Olivia around and constantly wants to be touching her. It is nice to see her being happy about the baby.