Today our little one is 1 week old. He celebrated with a great a latch and mumma snuggles. Its been a tough week and I mean TOUGH. We never thought that we would be sitting in the situation with our new baby in the NICU and us feeling lonely and guilty on the boat. Every what if has ran through our minds. What if we had him in a hospital? What if we never left North Carolina? What if the bout of mega seasickness did something to his development? What if? What if? What if? It has taken us 7 days to realize that we should stop tormenting ourselves, you can’t look to the past, only the future.
He’s doing really well, we hope to have him onboard on Wednesday if everything continues as it has. He’s on a 10 day course of antibiotics that he needs to follow out. If only he was older than he could have the meds on the boat but because of his age it needs to be given to him via an IV. The staff at the Princess Margaret Hospital have been amazing. I must admit when we first checked out the facilities at PMH we left with a rather bitter taste in our mouths, I think it must have been a bit of my dinner coming up. The place is really unsanitary with sick people everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE. PMH is the public hospital on the island and the citizens here have free healthcare. From what I hear the government is pretty broke and the hospital looks badly in disrepair. But this is just the building itself. All the doctors that we came across are highly trained in the US. Our doctor even gave us her cell phone that so we could contact her day and night. She answered every time we called her, now what doc does that in the US? She never bullshitted us once and as we found out today her billing is extremely fair. If anyone is looking for a pediatrician / neonatologist we HIGHLY recommend Dr. Gwen McDaigen here on Nassau. She has even agreed for us to call her 24/7 if we have an issue with any of our kids while cruising.
So here we are still sitting at the dock spending mega bucks waiting on our baby to come home. Our bills are getting pretty scary so we can’t wait for the day we can leave and head on down to the Exumas with our family of five to enjoy some sunshine. Roughly so far we have spent $6,000 on the birth at the New Beginnings Birthing Center (doctor included), $3,000 of NICU fees (we still have money owing), $2,000 for Pediatrician / Neonatologist and we are waiting on the bill from the heart scan he had the other day. It has still been cheaper to have him here than in the States and the care has been top notch.
I don’t know where the last 7 days has gone. Carl and I visit him in the morning and mom and I visit in the evenings. It’s a bit of a blur what we do in between, sometimes grocery shopping, sometimes extra doctors appointments. We will be extra busy when he comes home too. We have received his Bahamian birth certificate and need to apply for a Bahamian passport, US citizenship and US passport. I think the hardest part will be trying to figure out where to get a passport photo done. I hate paperwork!
People have amazed us lately with their generosity. A few boats down is a charter motor boat run by the most spectacular couple. Sue learnt that our baby was in the hospital so she came over with a cooked dinner one night. She didn’t even know us from a bar of soap. We feasted on an organic chicken and vegeies. Much better than anything I could do. They have also left us a set of keys to their mini cooper so we can come and go from the Hospital safely. In this day and age what person does this for complete strangers? Everyday we are so thankful for their kindness. We have also made good friends with Bambi and Pierre our neighbors here. They have helped out immensely by taking my mom and girls on bus trips around the island. I surprised my mom isn’t climbing the walls by now, all we do is visit the baby and run errands. What a vacation she’s having!
So I write this at 1:26am up pumping my boobs. I wake up now twice a night to pump to make sure I keep up with his demand when he gets home. I’m on the newborn schedule without the newborn.
I hope the next post I write will be about the wonders of having a new boat baby onboard.
