Cost of shots and the daycare v. home-based care dilemma

Just spoke with the pediatrician. Each Synagis shot (RSV protection) costs...get this...$1600! Since it could take a while to get a decision on the appeal to the insurance company, we want to proceed with the first shot so that Cooper will be protected and we can bring him back to daycare at least until we can make other arrangements, so she's going to order the medicine on Monday and we'll pay out of pocket and hope that insurance will approve the appeal and reimburse us. If not, we would pay $1600 per month for the next 4-5 months to protect him from RSV, plus $1200 per month for daycare, equalling $2800 per month!

So...if insurance denies the appeal request for the shots we'll probably try to find an in-home caregiver (if we can find someone at $500 per week we'd be paying less than the daycare plus shots and keeping him out of the line of fire of RSV and other illnesses) to get us through the next several months but at least he'll be protected from the RSV for a month while we work on getting someone lined up if need be and we'd go back to daycare when he's closer to a year old.

If the insurance company DOES approve it on the appeal, then we'll give daycare another try before going to in-home care because of cost, time, and work issues but if he keeps getting sick we'll reassess.

I've been researching the home-based care option. Nanny agencies in the area want 25% of the nanny salary for someone that you hire for 6-month period or less (if we assume $500/week salary, the fee would be approximately $3,000 payable up front) , or 15% of the nanny salary for someone we'd hire for a year-long period (if we assume $500/week salary, the fee would be approximately $3600 payable up front). Nanny salaries range from $500-$1000 per week. It's totally outrageous. So if we do the nanny route, we'd need to try finding someone word-of-mouth and this is going to be challenging since none of our friends have small children with nannies.

AND, even when we get someone lined up, I'm going to have to spend a lot more time working from home because of Cooper's medical needs since a standard nanny can't administer medications unsupervised (though the daycare center can administer meds). We'll do what it takes to protect him but this is going to be challenging on so many levels - either way we go.

My mom told me that I had very similar issues as Cooper when I was a baby and didn't start turning around until 5.5-6 months. If Cooper is following in my footsteps (and so far his issues have been very similar to those I had) then I hope he at least follows along with the time frame and is much much better within this next month.