Thursday, February 10, 2011

Jaundice and screaming and weight loss oh my!

I don't mean for my title to make light of the issues Wilson has encountered, but now that we seemed to have gotten past all of them I figured a little bit of humor couldn't hurt.

Wilson's medical drama's started the Sunday after Wilson was born as we prepared to go home. His nurse came in to go over his check up that morning and let us know that Wilson had jaundice and would have to have light treatments. Now I had heard of jaundice but a) I really didn't know what it all meant and b) I really hadn't noticed that my precious baby boy did somewhat resemble a pumpkin so I was taken by surprise when she told us this. I am sure some of you can relate to the fact that the day you prepare to go home from the hospital can be scary enough but then to be told you will have to go home with special medical equipment because your little one has something, while common, means that he isn't 100% healthy makes it that much harder.

So, we went home that day with Wilson and a biliblanket that he would need to lay on 24/7 until his bili levels came down. This also meant a visit to the pediatrician first thing in the morning to check his levels again. Going on very little sleep we arrived at the pediatrician Monday morning where in order to check his bili levels they had to prick his heel and squeeze out his blood into a tube. That poor nurse not only had to endure Wilson's screams but my sobbing as I tried to love on him as much as possible during the process. It was truly a traumatic experience for us both, so you can imagine my horror when they called later that day to say his levels had gone up and we would have to continue the biliblanket and come in again the next morning to do the whole thing over again. Luckily, I was better prepared to handle the whole thing better the next day and his levels were normal that time so we did not have to repeat the process and he was able to come off the biliblanket. (I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of Wilson on the biliblanket but here is what it looked like and here is a baby with it on. It made him light up like a Christmas tree and so we affectionately called him our little glow worm).

Our next visit to the doctor was for Wilson's 2 weeks check-up. Wilson was back to his birth weight which made me happy because I am breastfeeding and you just never know if they are getting what they need. We left that day with a good report and didn't expect to see Dr. Guyton again until Wilson's 2 month check-up. However, the following week Wilson seemed to get fussier and fussier as the days went by. He was crying a lot between feedings and I just couldn't figure out what was wrong. Thinking it was gas we did everything we knew possible to help him but nothing seemed to make it better. Then that Friday Wilson had black bits in his spit up and in his diaper. I didn't want to be the paranoid first time mother but it just didn't seem normal so I called the doctor and they told me to bring him on in. When we got there, they weighed him and he had lost 2 ounces (which in the baby world is a big deal, since he should have gained a couple of ounces since his last check-up). They tested the spit up and poop and discovered it was blood. The question then was it my blood or his. The fact that there was blood, combined with the weight loss and his doctor noticed his jaundice coloring had not gotten much better they decided they needed to run a panel of tests. Of course this meant that more blood had to be drawn. They needed quite a bit so they tried to find a vein to take it from but after 15 minutes of prodding they could not get enough blood from a vein. So to add to Wilson's discomfort they had to take three tubes worth of blood from his heel again. My heart was breaking as I had to hear him scream and there was nothing I could do about it. I was on pins and needles all day until they called. Thankfully when they did call they told me all his blood work came back normal. However, it seemed that he wasn't getting enough from me to continue exclusively breastfeeding so I had to start supplementing. This was hard to accept because as hard as breastfeeding was, it was what I wanted to do and I was scared that if I started supplementing with formula Wilson would no longer nurse. I also had to deal with the guilt that what I thought was crying over gas was really him being hungry. You never want to think you aren't fulfilling your child's needs and knowing that he had been hungry just about killed me. But I knew I couldn't dwell on that and now we knew what we could do to keep him happy and healthy so we started supplementing that day. I am glad to report he gained 8 oz by that Monday and has been doing just fine nursing and taking a bottle and has been a happy baby since :)
Here is the best picture I could find that shows Wilson's jaundice tan. That is his Grandma and Great Grandaddy with him (Ranse's Mom and Grandfather).

2 comments:

  1. We need to talk! Send me your number and when a good time to call :)
    Too many similar situations!!

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  2. Meghan, being a first time mom is extremely stressful and I am so proud of you for having such a good attitude about everything!! You are a fantastic mom!! :)

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