Saturday, June 13, 2009

just when i thought...

it was time to let our baby-secret out of the bag...

tomorrow morning at 10am we get our baby back. what?

i mentioned that amely was under oxygen for an hour after she was born. she had swallowed some fluid and as a preventive measure, they watched her for awhile with the air tent over her head. she was fine, though, and we took her home just 36 hours after she was born.

and then she started to get yellow. we didn't think too much of it at first, because it was just her face, but then it started to descend and her eyes got pretty icky. amalio ran into the doctor in the supermarket and she insisted we take her to the ER in the morning (i assume she'd have sent us to her office, but it was a holiday) to get some tests run: a bilirubin test and a coombs test.

her bilirubin was super high. the doc thought maybe it was a blood incompatibility - that baby had O+ and i have A, but after a quick blood test it was determined that that was not the issue. she could be jaundiced because she wasn't getting enough sunlight (it's been raining here for weeks) or because she swallowed my blood during the birthing process.

either way, she was taken away to the neo-natal unit for phototherapy. the doctor didn't give us any time periods - just told us that, don't worry, it's not fatal, but she'll need to stay as long as it takes to get her bilirubin levels down to where they should be.

thursday afternoon she began her treatment and by friday morning at the 15 minute visiting "hour" she was back to normal color from neck down. by friday night at the 15 minute visiting "hour" her face was better. today they took her blood again and found her levels just fine, leaving her for the night just to make sure.

all of that to say, she's coming home tomorrow and hopefully we won't have anymore issues. the real sad part of it is that my mom has been here and is leaving like now and won't be able to spend much time with her new granddaughter. they did break the rules and let her in to hold her in neo this afternoon.

so, more pictures and stories soon. hope you all had a great weekend!

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