I am now a step-Great Granny. (My son-in-law's stepdaughter's son.) He is a really cute little boy, came early, about 35 weeks but is a fighter and growing by leaps and bounds. So now have a new baby to buy presents for. Babies are fun.

Good for you to have fun with him and enjoy him too

Heck yeah babies are fun, they are so cute when they are newborns, they grin for no reason, and when they stretch they do a complete back bend. Awwww!

Nothing like those grand babies and to be blessed to be a great grandmother is just PRICELESS!!

Congrats on the new arrival~~~~~

Congratulations on the little addition to your family

I love to shop for babies. No new ones around here yet,but they are working on it. I would like a little girl,my youngest granddaugther is 6 now.

Thank you all. He lives about 40 miles away, so can't see him too often (major car problems right now) but hope to get it fixed before too long, then will see him more often. I love babies, they are cuddly and fun to be with.
Take care.

I am not trying to be funny, or cute, this is an honest question.

Who pays for the hospital bill while the kid is in an incubator?

If it's paid by the baby's family, how much does this sort of service cost?

How much does a birth cost? A regular, maybe long birth, but with no serious or grave complications? The costs accrued from arriving in a taxi to going home in a taxi.

How much does pre-natal check-ups cost, end-to-end, for a mom-baby combo, with no real grave or serious complications ever, along the way?

I mean this question. In Canada it's all free, but in the states, would your financial insolvency mean the death of a child, a baby? And/or the death of the unborn baby's mother?

Please answer honestly and with respect, this is not a "funny" question. I don't know know what the situation is in these cases. I would like to learn.

Oh, and congrats, it must be a real joy. Newborn babies are ugly as hell, but in an ah ever so cute way. You look at one, and you want to die, they are so cute.

They look like litte ETs, but that's a lot of fun too, you can bug your wife jokingly, which planet the real daddy had come from. And was it for a one-night stand, and he took the spaceship back, or is he still under the bathtub or in that bottom kitchen drawer that I never ever, ever, pull out and look in.

And they are so tiny and vulnarable, and ugly, and cute and loveable.

This is one of the greatest joys in life.

But not when they eventually reach my size, my weight, my age, and my arrogance. Yikes, pfooi. Get really farther away from that man, Rickie, my darling, or you will look like him when you grow up to be his age.

You MUST have more babies!! I hear you have three, but that's just barely scraping the surface of what's potentially in you.

Wux -- the baby was lucky, he was 4 lbs. 9 oz. at birth and came home from the hospital at about 2 weeks. I have no idea what the hospital bill was. Truth is, she is state assistance as her mother kicked her and her older sister out of the home when they were about 13 and 14, so they have been on their own. Baby's mom just turned 18 and will have to find a job now to support them. Hospitals are not cheap. I work in the medical system as a transcriptionist, not billing. But a basic office visit usually runs in the $120 range (I think) and goes up according to length of visit and if they do any procedures, injections, excisions, etc. I am not sure how much a hospital stay is per day, or birth costs. We actually are classified as a rural hospital and get federal funding, at least we still do until next legislative go round, and have a sliding fee scale, so if someone comes into the hospital (a local resident anyways, not a visitor) and breaks their leg or delivers a baby and does not have insurance, the fee is adjusted per their income and they will get their medical needs taken care of, possibly free or at the adjusted rate according to their income. Our rural status is up for grabs again this legislature go around again. The hospital bought up the 5 medical clinics here so the doctors are employees and don't have all the overhead, and the clinics also then have the sliding fee scale, etc. This didn't really answer all your questions, but hope it helped a little.

Luckily, the baby is healthy, just over a month old and over 8 lbs now.

Thanks much everyone for all your well wishes. Take care.