Bilirubin Woes
Sal and I had a Friday afternoon appointment with Dr. Bhat so we stopped at Quest Diagnostics first to have Seth's blood drawn. He barely fussed as I nursed him through the minor procedure.
We arrived at Dr. Bhat's office and she was disappointed to know we had gone to Quest. We should have gone to St. Margaret's in order to have the results of his draw back more quickly. She said she'd call with the results later in the day.
He passed his physical and we left.
My mom, who had been staying with us for the week, debated on going home this afternoon so as to avoid a weekend snowstorm, but at the last minute the girls convinced her to stay. And, thank God they did.
Around 6pm Dr. Bhat called and said his bilirubin levels had jumped again. She told us that we would have to go to Children's Hospital so he could be lighted. I kept it together until I saw my tiny baby all alone under the lights. I held his little hand through the incubator and we waited.
In the emergency room "holding room," residents give us conflicting information, and I finally told a nurse that since the doctors couldn't all get on the same page, I was going to make decisions. Seth was going to stay lighted until his levels decreased. We hadn't shown up at the hospital to play games and Seth wasn't their guinea pig.
I also asked why his onesie had been left on. That seemed to defeat the purpose as far as I was concerned. No one had an explanation and so it was cut off shortly after this picture was taken.
Eventually they moved us to a real room with a bed and we spent a restless night in the hospital. Because I was a breastfeeding mom, my meals were comped. However, the food left a lot to be desired. Mercy's is much better.
Throughout his time in the incubator, Seth seemed quite content so that made it a little easier to see him this way.
By Saturday afternoon his levels had decreased and stayed down after the lights were turned off. Nearly 24 hours later we were finally going home to our regularly scheduled life.
We arrived at Dr. Bhat's office and she was disappointed to know we had gone to Quest. We should have gone to St. Margaret's in order to have the results of his draw back more quickly. She said she'd call with the results later in the day.
He passed his physical and we left.
My mom, who had been staying with us for the week, debated on going home this afternoon so as to avoid a weekend snowstorm, but at the last minute the girls convinced her to stay. And, thank God they did.
Around 6pm Dr. Bhat called and said his bilirubin levels had jumped again. She told us that we would have to go to Children's Hospital so he could be lighted. I kept it together until I saw my tiny baby all alone under the lights. I held his little hand through the incubator and we waited.In the emergency room "holding room," residents give us conflicting information, and I finally told a nurse that since the doctors couldn't all get on the same page, I was going to make decisions. Seth was going to stay lighted until his levels decreased. We hadn't shown up at the hospital to play games and Seth wasn't their guinea pig.
I also asked why his onesie had been left on. That seemed to defeat the purpose as far as I was concerned. No one had an explanation and so it was cut off shortly after this picture was taken.
Eventually they moved us to a real room with a bed and we spent a restless night in the hospital. Because I was a breastfeeding mom, my meals were comped. However, the food left a lot to be desired. Mercy's is much better.
Throughout his time in the incubator, Seth seemed quite content so that made it a little easier to see him this way.
By Saturday afternoon his levels had decreased and stayed down after the lights were turned off. Nearly 24 hours later we were finally going home to our regularly scheduled life.
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