Our First Week

Coming Home-Attempt One

Jim and I got baby Charlotte ready to come home on Tuesday, April 21st. We finished up everything in the hospital and got ready for both of us to be discharged. Charlotte's pedicatrician noted that her bilirubin were slightly elevated so he wanted to see her back on Thursday instead of in two weeks. My doctor came and finished everything up with me and we were on our way home Tuesday afternoon! Tuesday evening we hung out at home. Tuesday night was definately rough, as I am sure many nights with a newborn will be. I think between the two of us we got maybe 2 hours of sleep a piece...maybe! Here we are at home. Going Back

Wednesday morning we noticed that Charlotte was looking pretty yellow, including the whites of her eyes. We decided that instead of waiting until our appointment on Thursday we would call the pediatrician and see what he thought. He sent us in to the hospital to get her labs drawn and her bilirubin retested. We had to wait there for the results to see what the next course of action would be. We thought we were waiting to see if she needed a bili-blanket or not, but the next thing we know we got a call from our doctor and they were sending someone down to escort us to be admitted to the children's hospital. Needless to say we were quite surprised.

Her levels had gone from 10.6 the day before to 18.5 on Wednesday. They needed to get her up and under the phototherapy lights as soon as possible. They ended up putting her on IV fluids, under he bright lights and on the blue bed. Needless to say it was very hard for Jim and I. We weren't able to hold her or comfort her, she had goggles on to protect her eyes, we missed our baby. Wednesday night was very hard to say the least. Thursday started a little bit better. The bilirubin test they drew the night before came back good. The doctor told us that at best they hoped it wouldn't rise, but it went down from 18.5 to 16.5. She spent the rest of the day under the lights. They came back in early afternoon to test again. Those ones came back fantastic, she had dropped to 12.9. They decided to turn off the bright overhead lights but to keep her on the blue bed. Jim and I were very excited. We were even allowed to get her out and hold her for awhile before she had to go back in the bed. You just don't realize how much you need those moments, I was quite a mess and being able to hold her again really saved me a bit of sanity.

Thursday night, however, was another story. We had been getting pretty excited because it looked as though we would be going home sometime on Friday depending on how the bilirubins came back from the test they would draw overnight. Then, they came in about 8:30 on Thursday night to let us know that her blood culture they took when we arrived came back showing an infection. They said they were pretty sure the sample had been contaminated, but they would need to draw more blood, re-do the culture, and put her on precautionary antibiotics. The first time they had to draw blood and insert the IV was a mess. Jim was in the room for it and they had to poke multiple times with no luck so we were not excited that she had to go back and have it done again. We were also quite upset because a culture takes a minimum of 24 hours to show an infection, meaning we needed to be at the hospital until Saturday morning at least. Another night in the hospital was very hard to swallow, but deep down we knew it was for the best.

Thursday she had a rough night sleeping. Being confined to the bed was really getting to her I think. Not only that but the antibiotics can cause diarrhea and upset stomach so she was just not feeling too hot. They came in to prick her heel for bilirubin at 3 or 4 am. Friday morning we got the results and she had gone down to 11.5 so they took her off of the bed, that was quite a relief! We still had to be at the hospital because she was still on IV fluids and antibiotics until the culture came back. So we spent most of Friday holding and cuddling our little bean. On Friday the hospital had a group visiting to sing to the kids. They asked if they could come and sing Charlotte a lullaby and we said that would be nice. The song was absolutely beautiful, listen to the words, they will melt your heart. The video isn't super great, but still worth listening to.



Coming Home - This Time For GOOD!

Saturday morning we waited and waited until finally the doctor came in to let us know that the blood culture was negative for infection and it was a skin contaminate that had jeopardized the first test. We were very relieved and extremely ready to go home. We got all of our stuff together, said goodbye to my Mom (who saved us by being here to watch our pets and keep us company) and out we went. Saturday night was spent relaxing as a family, nothing could have been better at the time.