This Too Shall Pass

Seeing as how my pregnancy and even labor were so easy, and even breastfeeding has been a pretty smooth ride with it coming fairly naturally to us both, we knew something had to be coming. Call me superstitious or paranoid but that much easy must mean hard is around the corner.

On Friday we discovered that her bilirubin levels were a wee bit too high. Jaundice, something I thought was simple. By Saturday they had jumped even more, so we were admitted at Johns Hopkins and spent our weekend here, leaving at midnight on Sunday. Yesterday morning they had jumped again rather than going down, and tests this morning showed they had jumped into the high risk range.

So here I am, sitting in the infant and toddler section of Johns Hopkins. Luckily so far all of the nurses and doctors have been amazing, so we weren't stressed about coming back. When our pediatrician called we went home, ate lunch, nursed, packed and headed here. They just told us that even before she received light therapy her levels have already gone down, which is an excellent sign. Maybe she just had higher levels longer than the normal 4 day average. At 5 days old, having been born easily at a birth center we've spent more time at the hospital than home!

So prayers and thoughts are greatly accepted. Her heels look like a pin cushion (she's been stuck over a dozen times and the numbers continue). But other than the levels she's completely normal, alert, eating well and sleeping. I tell her this is spa and she's trying to not look like a Jersey Shore cast member!

I'll update this once we're home, which I'm hoping is by Thursday when she's a week old!