I've been robbed.

My absolute favorite thing about having a baby is the newness of it all. I love the way they smell before their first baths, I love snuggling them up before they've "unfolded". I love that they know who I am. I love sitting around and letting them dictate what I do when. I just love my new babies. But this week, I've been robbed. This is the long horrible story. When we left the hospital last Tuesday with baby Jack, his bilirubin was 14. They like it to be below 12. So, we did what you do, and stripped him down and put him in the sunniest window we had.

Mind you, this is December, and we live in the mid-west. The sun was not really exactly "shinning".

But we did our best, and took him back to the lab on Wednesday. Three different lab techs had poked him at least twice, and took the 4 vials of blood while he screamed his little heart out, and his Mommy cried. The Dr. called, his count had jumped to 21. The Dr. ordered a "bili-blanket" for him, and they brought it out on Wednesday night.

Not a terrible horrible thing, but totally inconvenient. It's hard to snuggle with cord attached to your baby. We had to go back to the lab on Thursday, it dropped to 19.6, Friday we had a terrible ice storm and our power was out all day, so Jack and I had to spend the day at T.'s. ( We love T's, but we really just wanted to be home.) Saturday back to the lab, count was 18. Monday, back at the lab. The tech poked him twice, and could not get a sample, so the second tech tried, and did not get a full sample. I had enough. He was screaming...I was crying...

When we returned home we realized that the techs had bruised his calf, and two places on his foot squeezing so hard. I told the Dr. that called to let us know that his count had dropped to 16, that I was NOT taking him back. Tuesday, our MD called. She had called the lab and let them know that I had a horrible experience, and I would not be bringing my baby back. She does want one more draw, and we agreed that I would go on Friday to the hospital. Hopefully they will have more experience with bitty babies... until then, he is our little glow bug.

On a better note, at his one week check - up, he weighed 9 pounds, 4 ounces. He's Growing!! He has been such a good baby. Eating well, sleeping well. No fussy times, when his is awake, he is very alert, looks around like a big boy. Let's hope it stays this way. We are on our own now, Mom had to leave yesterday....