Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Back to where we started

There's something really nerve wracking about taking your infant BACK to the hospital, especially after you just got him home.

He came home on the 8th, and we took him back on the 11th.  By that time his bili levels were just so high and he was losing so much weight, he had to go under the lights.  Normally in this case they would deliver a bili blanket to your house and you would do the therapy at home.  But my insurance wouldn't cover it.  So back to the hospital we went.
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I guess what scared us the most was the manner in which they told us to come back to the hospital.

We were at the doctors that day, and they suggested we go to the lab directly to get his levels checked.  They pricked his little heel and it wasn't so bad.

My aunt and uncle came a far distance that night to see Liam, and around 8PM, during their visit, the phone rang.  It was the pediatrician.  She said they had already called the hospital and we were to take Liam there and enter through the ER.  They would send us up to the pediatrics floor where a room would be waiting for him.  They had pre-registered him, so there would be no need to do anything but just bring him in.

Doesn't that sound pretty intense?  Like, time is of the essence, intense?  My family left quickly and we restocked the hospital bags from labor that weren't even unpacked yet.  The baby started screaming.  I was (once again) just crying so hard.  And the Handsome Husband just held me.  We stopped at McDonalds on the way back to Harrisburg, and like Mary and Joseph, we made our escape to the big city with the man child.
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We were so thankful for the staff at our hospital.  We got there, walked through the creepy people in the ER, took an elevator up to the peds floor, and the nurse at the door said, "This must be Liam!  Your room is waiting for you!"  And sure enough, there was a room glowing blue just for us.  They didn't waste time stripping him down to his little diaper and putting little felt sunglasses on him and sticking him under the lights.  Except, the glasses didn't stick, so they put a little headband around his head.  Poor Liam looked like he was being interrogated by Iraqi terrorists.

 
 
The nurses woke me up every two hours to feed him, which meant no sleep for me.  They continued to take his bili levels through the night.  In the morning a team of doctors came in to see him.  They were students from Hershey Med and since Liam was the only infant on the floor, he was quite the celebrity.  The pediatrician came and gave us our walking papers and we were home before supper.

He's fine now- five weeks after the fact- and gaining weight like a pro and pooping and everything else a baby should be doing.  But in the meantime, he gave us a little "new parent" scare.  (Come to find out, every single one of my mommy friends had the same situation with their little ones).

Funny thing though.  When we were on the peds floor, we could see the Harrisburg city skyline from our room.  Standing out, amidst the roofs of apartment and office buildings and the the steam and exhaust rising from the business, was the Market Square Presbyterian Church steeple.  We attended that church for quite a while in college, so I know they pride themselves with their outstanding steeple.  Amazing how something as overlooked as a steeple can make such an impact on a frantic mother as she's praying her son isn't really really sick.  But it can.  And it does.