premmie babies, hospitals, trips and money??

[BloominRoses]

Hey Sweetpea -

As I just went through this and relied initially on taxis until I was completely beyond broke, and then solely on public transport (which still required long bouts of walking on my part) and the extreme kindness of friends with cars, I couldn't read this and not post although I'm not sure I'll be of much help.

My hospital Social Worker had access to free full-day MetCards so I could ride public transport all day long for free. Also, I'm not sure about your hospital, but at mine the cost of parking was absolutely ridiculous and I was given basically a letter each week to allow me to purchase a parking pass for $35/wk which was a huge discount since parking there for a full day costs that alone. Although I obviously didn't use the pass myself, I passed it on to Seth's father and his family and they shared it amongst themselves.

Money is seriously one of the biggest worries when you find yourself in this situation. At first I was so exhausted both physically and mentally that I relied on meals purchased from the food court and easy transportation home until my money ran out. Rather quickly I may add. I did however have access to a Parent's Lounge on the SCN ward so once the fatigue subsided for a bit, I started to bring food from home that I had prepared the night before.

So my advice is to A. Not overly stress about what you're going to do in an 'IF' situation. Yes it's great to be prepared, but I find sometimes over-preparation can make you more anxious than anything else considering we really don't have much of a choice regarding timing when our babies decide to do a runner from our bellies.

B. If your hospital is equipped and advanced enough to properly care for Prem babies, then chances are there will be both a Social Worker and a Care Manager who are assigned to each Prem family. They'll have the information regardiing every single support and offer of assisance available, both from the hospital itself and from Centrelink and other Commonwealth agencies.

Don't fret darling - there are heaps of people thrust into this situation each day and no one will allow you to go any length of time without seeing your baby who needs you more than anything.

HTH in some small way -
S xo
OT but interesting: I had Low PAPPPA as well although this wasn't listed as a contributing factor to Seth's prematurity.