One Month and Growing!

I can hardly believe that one month ago, Micaiah was born! ONE MONTH PEOPLE! Where did the time go? I mean, we keep fairly busy and I know that we went through a lot this first month, but how did it go so fast? A good friend of mine bought monthly stickers that go on onesies so that I can take his picture each month. I wish I had thought to do something like this with Emma! Each month I'll take his picture and post it. Then, on his first birthday, I'll be able to put them all together to see how much he's changed over the last 12 months!

This first month has been wonderful, exhausting and fun! The first week was just plain exhausting and stressful. Micaiah lost 10% of his birth weight when we were discharged from the hospital. A weight check with his pediatrician the next day showed that he was going down and his biliruben (for jaundice) was going up. By Wednesday it had risen to 20, which was too high, and we were sent back to be re-admitted into the pediatric unit for light therapy. We were told 48 hours of therapy and supplemental feedings. The feedings were to help get his weight back up and it meant pumping after every feeding. Then at each feeding, he got two ounces that were put into a syringe that had a tube attached to it. It was taped to my breast and then he latched onto both. It was quite the set-up and a huge stresser. For a mom getting used to nursing again, it doesn't help to have to have something else added to that. Plus, pumping sucks!

The set-up he had for light therapy

The light therapy was to bring down his biliruben. He was laid in a cradle that had the lights underneath. He was then zipped into this little blanket that had sleeves for his arms (this a snuggie) and another light was inserted over the top of him. He was able to have his head and eyes free and uncovered along with his arms because in the sleeves. I'm so glad I was able to sit with him and hold his hand because it is hard to be kept from being able to hold your baby unless it's time to feed. There were a lot of tears and sniffles... Early the next morning, the lab came to draw blood to check his levels again. The pediatrician stopped by to look at him and make sure we were doing well and said she'd call with the results as soon as they came in. We got a call a couple hours later that he had gone from 20 to 14 and that if we did 10 more hours of light therapy, that we would be able to go home. So that 48 hours became 24 and it was a weight off of both of our shoulders. It's hard to be away from home and Emma. Thankfully, my parents were still in town. We got home about 6pm and felt like we could finally relax.

His two week check revealed a weight gain of only about 2 oz, so his pediatrician asked us to check up with a lactation consultant to make sure I was 1) producing enough milk and 2) he was latching and eating okay. So we met with lactation who told us he was up to 7 lbs 6 oz (up from 7lbs a week prior and almost back to birth weight) and that he was feeding well. We scheduled a weight check for this past week to make sure he was definitely gaining and he is now 8lbs and I never thought I'd be excited for such a small amount of weight gain.

He celebrated his first Halloween too. We didn't have a costume, but we did put him into a cute little blue bear bunting. Emma was Belle and boy was Halloween a rough night! I'll have to post a separate post for Halloween specifically, but here's a picture of the two of them: 

We've had quite the eventful month and I am so glad we didn't go through this with Emma. I'm pretty sure if we had, we wouldn't have had anymore kids! ... I hope that the next 11 months are fairly uneventful because after this first one, I'm ready for some normalcy and I would hope that we don't have to visit the doctor nearly as often as we have this month.

That was a lot to document. Maybe I should blog more.... Then I wouldn't have to type this all at once... To make up for all the reading, here's some pictures!

Big Sister and Little Brother