Rough week to start parenthood, that's for sure.
Started out great...no complications, no worries, nothing bad with the delivery and post-delivery at the hospital. Even nursing was apparently, by all counts of the experts at the hospital, going great...baby and mom were both doing their jobs well, with good "form" for lack of a better term.
But, here we are, about to "celebrate" (by sleeping) our son's one-week birthday, and I'm thinking about just how hairy a first week of life it turned out to be...
All was great and wonderful Tuesday after an expectedly challenging first night (Mon.-Tue.) at home for A.J. He slept, ate and digested, slept, ate and digested, all day long. Barely made a peep other than when he was ready to eat or have the diaper changed.
Then, Tuesday evening, some time after my parents left, the real test began. It was as though someone came and switched out our baby for a different one in our own home. Suddenly, A.J. was screaming and unconsoleable, for the most part. Although we'd only had him for about two days at this point and he'd been quiet most of those two days, we both could tell this was not crying. Something was not right in his world...not right more than normal too.
However, we tried to continue to find ways to console him. We even broke down and gave him a pacifier (a big no-no for nursing babies...depending whom you ask). He took that and quieted down for 10 minutes before spitting it out and screaming more.
A.J. wanted nothing to do with me. I couldn't do anything to calm him. Gina, however, was able to quiet him on occasion...OK, actually, only for an hour. And as such, she got one hour of sleep. I finally fell asleep close to when many of you were probably getting up for work. I slept in pretty much to lunch, while Gina's mom came over to help (or try to). Somehow, they got him to quiet down and take a nap in grandma's lap. After an hour, though, he woke up and got back to screaming.
Soon after that, I woke up, heard this was still going on and said, "That's it, I can't take it anymore. We're taking him to the ER." This was not only based on the screaming, but also based on the fact that he was fast approaching 11 hours without having pooped or wetted at all. Gina and grandma suspected jaundice, as he looked a bit yellow at home.
We got to the ER. Under the nice flourescents there, his yellow was obvious. So jaundice was definitive (and, it is common and cureable). But, they said something else wasn't right, because he had a low-grade fever and because of the bathroom issues and screaming. Jaundice causes babies to grow lazy, not unbelievably agitated.
We then had to suffer through nurses and doctors attempting to take blood from him. Three times they tried. It's not fun to watch your three-day-old getting stuck with needles. Furthermore, I had to leave for the urine sample...just know that, obviously, a newborn cannot pee in a cup, and I'll leave it at that.
We were admitted because of the jaundice, and we had to put him in a photo-therapy box. Basically, it's a clear "tanning booth" of sorts...jaundice and bilirubin in newborns is interesting, so all your scientists out there should read about it, and how the body evacuates it.
But he wouldn't lay still in the therapy box. The nurse said we would have to give him formula to calm him. This was against our wishes. We argued heavily with them, but not because we're stubborn asses...but because they weren't explaining anything properly. If they would have said, originally, that he would, guaranteed, calm down if we gave him formula and lay in the box quietly -- because he was undernourished -- I wouldn't have had to snap at the doctor and practically bite his head off to answer the one question we wanted answered, in that the formula would guarantee A.J. would calm down (because his stomach would no longer be empty).
After A.J. guzzled the formula down as though he'd just emerged from a trek across the Sahara Desert, Gina and I, of course, felt an immense feeling of guilt that we'd starved our child without even realizing it.
Once we got A.J. on a formula schedule, he stayed calm and his bilirubin levels went down VERY quickly. Gina's body is still playing catchup with supply, so we'll be supplementing with formula for a little while yet. Hopefully, the light will turn on inside her and she will soon be able to provide all the nutrition A.J. needs. Obviously, this whole incident has been really, really tough on her...and, by extension, tough on me.
There's nothing worse than feeling as though you're inadequate or you're not doing your best by your child...especially your helpless newborn. Even knowing that none of it was our fault in that we had no way of preventing this, honestly, this will likely always sit with us in the "hindsight is 20-20" category.
Thankfully, both A.J. and mom (and me) are home and healthy. We all came back yesterday, and since, A.J. has eaten well and resumed his "schedule" of sorts. It's been much better, and I hope it continues...obvioulsy, there will be more roadblocks and pitfalls, but we got through this one, and I'm hoping we'll build the strength to get through the rest in the same way.
