After Shiloh's birth, and after my medicines had worn off, we were able to enjoy our baby girl! I remember thinking how beautiful she was and that I was so excited that she had a head full of dark hair. She looks a lot like her daddy! Our first day spending time with her and holding her was wonderful! She has such a sweet spirit and is such a good baby. The next day she had blood taken to check her Billirubin and it was elevated. She was required to be put on a BiliBed. The only time she was able to be taken off the lights was when she was eating. It was so hard. No clothing, no holding, no comforting our baby. When she would cry, we just had to use a paci and try to pat her or soothe her by holding her hands. Every morning the nurse took her blood and her levels stayed high (around 15-16). We stayed at the hospital an extra 2 days so we could keep her on the bed. We left the hospital on Tuesday, November 22, and her levels had gone down from 16 to 14 so the doctor felt confident that they would continue going down on their own. She left the hospital weighing right at 7lbs. We had to follow up with our pediatrician first thing Wednesday morning just to make sure her levels continued going down. On Wednesday, we went to the doctor and she thought Shiloh's color looked great and felt that her levels should be lower. That afternoon, we received a call that her levels were up to 19 and they were ordering a BiliBed to have at our house. I was so sad. I then began researching Jaundice and Billirubin levels. That was a big no-no! It freaked me out and I was praying that the bed would get here very quickly! Well, it didn't arrive until close to 8pm. We had to take Shiloh to Kennestone the next morning (Thanksgiving Day) to have her levels checked again and to make sure the bed was working. Our goal was to get her levels down to 12. Those results came back at 18.2. On Friday they were down to 15.7 and then on Saturday they were up to 16 again! It was very frustrating. On Monday, her levels finally went down to 11.7!! Finally! We were so relieved! NO MORE BiliBed!!
On Wednesday, I had to go to the doctor because my incision started draining...the doctor had already put me on antibiotics upon hospital discharge because I had an infection following my c-section with Daniel. He went ahead and cultured it but didn't think it was infected. I went home and was having more pain and trouble walking than I thought I should be at this point in my recovery, 12 days post partum. On Monday morning, my doctor called me first thing and told me that the culture had come back as a Staph infection and that it was resistant to the antibiotic I had been on. It was also resistant to every antibiotic that was safe for breastfeeding that I was not allergic to. This meant that I could not breastfeed for the 7 days I was on the medicine. I was pretty upset because breastfeeding had been going so well and I was worried if she was bottle fed for a week she might have a hard time latching again. I took the medicine and "pumped and dumped" for the week I was on the meds. Shiloh was sensitive to the regular formula so we had to use a special formula that was hypoallergenic. The day after I finished the medicine I decided to call a pharmacist to see how long I had to wait to start breastfeeding again after finishing the medicine. He told me 1- 2 weeks! WHAT? The half-life of the antibiotic I was taking was 18-22 hours! I decided to call the pediatrician to find out their recommendation. It was decided that I needed to wait a week. So on her 1 month birthday I was able to feed her again and she did great!
At her one month appointment on Monday, December 19th she was 8lbs 13oz and 20.5 inches long. She was measuring in the 25th percentile. The doctor was very happy with her weight gain and her growth. At the same time I had Daniel examined because he had been coughing and found out he had Croup. Poor little guy. He was put on a steroid to help with breathing and his horrible cough.
On Wednesday Shiloh started coughing too. The next day I took her into the doctor and her lungs sounded clear. I was warned to watch it very closely because with newborns it can get bad quick. Her cough got worse and on Christmas Eve we took her to the doctor to be re-evaluated. The doctor concurred that she had gotten worse but her chest still sounded clear and to just watch her closely. We were also told not to go anywhere except around family that we knew were not sick so that she did not catch anything else. Well, on Christmas she sounded worse but I was told not to worry unless her respiration's were high, she was wheezing, she turned blue or if her chest was pulling when she was breathing. That afternoon she started wheezing so I put her in a steamy bathroom and it seemed to help. It happened again later that evening and the steamy bathroom did not work. In a matter of a couple of hours her breathing became labored, her respiration's were high and her chest was pulling when she would breath. We headed to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite immediately. I called the on-call pediatrician on the way so they could let the hospital know we were coming. Once we arrived we were in triage pretty quickly and then sent right to an ER room. The doctor and a nurse were in the room before we even got there. He listened to her, looked at her and knew she had Bronchiolitis right away. They began a breathing treatment and deep suction immediately. The breathing treatment did not seem to help but the suctioning did. She was admitted for observation that night...Christmas night.
It was so sad to see my baby struggling so hard. At this point she was just getting suctioned every as needed. The breathing treatments really didn't do much so they didn't give them to her anymore. Her respiration's and pulse rate were pretty elevated. She seemed to be doing pretty well during the day but still not good enough to go home. That night she was struggling a little more to breath so they started her on Oxygen. She stayed on it through the night and into the next morning. They took her off because she her pulse and respiration's were coming down without it. I was thinking we were going to get to go home. The nurse came in to take her vitals and she had a fever! I knew we would be staying but we were waiting on the doctor to talk to us. She ordered lab work and came in with the nurses to take her blood and get a urine sample. They did a urine and blood culture and pretty much said that if her fever goes away and if her blood work comes back normal we could go home the next day. So on Wednesday, we were discharged at 7pm because it had been 24 hours and the blood culture had not grown anything. YAY we were going home. Brian and Daniel came and picked us up. It was so good to get to see my baby boy for the first time in 3 days! We went home and went to bed. Right as I was falling asleep I got a phone call from the hospital saying that her blood culture started growing a bacteria and that we needed to come back and have blood work repeated to see if it was just a contaminate. Grrrrr... So the next morning I dropped Daniel off with Mimi and headed back to the ER with Shiloh. The doctor examined her and told me we were being re-admitted to put Shiloh on IV antibiotics. They repeated the blood work. We had to wait for the first blood culture to continue growing so we could find out what kind of bacteria it was. If it was something called staph epidermidis it was most likely a contaminant and we could go home. If it was any other bacteria we would be staying for a 5-7 day course of IV antibiotics. While we were in the ER she received her first dose of Rocephin. She didn't need to be hooked up to fluids because she was well hydrated. Some Auburn football players came up to see the kids at the hospital and they stopped by Shiloh's room. They gave her a little cow and a t-shirt sponsored by the Chick-Fil-A Bowl. The next morning the doctor came in and said the bacteria was in fact staph epidermidis and we could go home!!! FOR GOOD!
After all of this, I have to say thank you to Mimi, Pops, Aunt Jess, Mia and Poppy for taking care of Daniel through all of this! We are so blessed to have such a great family support system and I really don't know what we would do without you guys. Also to Jessica, thank you for bringing me clothes and everything! It made the stay much better being clean :-)
One other thing I learned while we were at the hospital is that breastfeeding moms eat for free and you do not just have to order it to the room, you have an allowance in the cafeteria so you can pick what you want!
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