She's got clothes!

Abby passed the magical 1,500 gram barrier within the last few days, which means we got to dress her for the first time on Saturday. As you can see, her first outfit was a little shirt my mom bought that says "Lil' Peanut" on it. It's quite cute.

Why 1,500 grams? In theory, she should be big enough now to somewhat maintain her own body temperature. That means her bed can be set to a different setting and she can start wearing clothing. Also, it means she has one fewer temp probe on her.

She dropped a little weight yesterday, back to around 3 pounds, 8 ounces. She had approached 3 pounds, 10 ounces on Friday. It's been a great week for weight gain. We've been told she likely will be put back together after she gets to around 4 1/2 pounds.

Abigail seems to be, as Katrina just put it, "the queen of the NICU." She's quite popular among the nurses as being exceptionally cute. She was really cute today!

We've finally received Abby's first hospital bill that they actually think we should pay. They're asking for more than $5,000, but thankfully it appears that they haven't submitted the claim to one of the insurance companies. Also, Abby has been approved for Medicaid. In other words, we probably won't have to pay much of that bill in the end.

In case you were wondering, Abby's first day of life appears to have cost $2,062. Her subsequent days in the hospital cost slightly more than $1,400 per day, not including any scans or X-rays or lab work. Insurance and Medicaid are very good things!

Finally, a good laugh for the day: Abigail recently was approved for Social Security Disability payments while she's in the hospital. In the eight-page letter telling us about her acceptance, page 3 included the following sentence under the heading "Things to Remember":

"Her prompt cooperation is necessary if she is contacted by the state agency or district office."

The "her" clearly is referring to Abby in context. Since then, I've had several serious talks with Abby about how she must cooperate if any Social Security people come by. As long as they don't try to deep suction her nose, I think she'll do what she can for them!