The Week in Review

Here's an update on what's been happening around here.

Wednesday
Macy's bilirubin levels were a bit high (barely out of the normal range), so she had to spend the night under the "bililight," a fluorescent blue light that helps lower the bilirubin levels. The more common name for it is jaundice, and it's just the result of the new liver not working quite as well as it needs to. She got to wear funny goggles that reminded me of the TV room in Willy Wonka. As a result, we got an extra night's stay in the hospital to make sure her levels stayed down. I got to stay with her because my blood pressure still isn't behaving.

Thursday
We got to go home on Thursday! It was nice to finally get rid of my IV and wear normal clothes. It was fun to dress Macy in her own clothes (my mom, sister, and sister-in-law brought us some preemie clothes--the newborn clothes were huge!).

Macy also failed her carseat test (they put the baby in her seat for 90 minutes and monitor her oxygen level; as with the bilirubin levels, she barely failed, but the nurses wanted to err on the side of caution), so I have to ride in the backseat with her for a while. I've never seen Greg drive so carefully--he used his blinker for every lane change, went over bumps and dips at a snail's pace, etc. It was very sweet.

My mom came to stay with us and brought me dinner from Chili's to make up for my days of hospital food.

Friday
The only thing of note that occurred on Friday was Greg's first day back to work. The proud daddy wasn't very happy about the prospect of nine whole hours away from his baby. I also went in to my doctor to have my blood pressure checked and, surprise surprise, it was still ridiculously high.

Saturday
Saturday is one day that I don't care much to remember. The nursing war I've been waging with Macy reached an all-time high that lasted all day. The poor thing screamed herself hoarse at one point. I was exhausted, Greg and my mom were exhausted, and Macy was exhausted (not to mention starving). Because of her low birthweight, Macy wasn't waking up on her own when she was hungry, but it was important that she eat regularly so that she could start gaining weight. So first we'd battle to wake her up, then repeatedly attempt to get her to start eating, then struggle to keep her awake and eating for at least ten minutes.

Fortunately, she's been great since then. She's waking up on her own (day and night) and it's all getting easier.

Sunday
We had lots of visitors on Sunday. The whole family came down to have dinner with us and to take my mom away from me.

Monday
We had a follow-up visit with the pediatrician to check Macy's bilirubin levels and weight (usually you don't have an appointment until two weeks after birth, but because of her size and the jaundice they wanted to check her sooner). The doctor decided based on her skin tone that we didn't need to test for bilirubin levels (it requires a prick on the heel to draw some blood). She weighed 5 lbs, 3 oz, which means she's doing great. Her birthweight was 4 lbs, 15 oz, and when we left the hospital she weighed 4 lbs, 9 oz. I had them check my blood pressure while we were there and, you guessed it, it was still too high.

Monday was the first day Macy woke up regularly on her own. Her umbilical cord fell off (faster than they normally do), so we don't have to worry about that anymore and can give her real baths now.

Tuesday
I don't think anything too exciting happened Tuesday, but that night she leaked through her diaper twice. That was sure fun to deal with at 1 and 4 in the morning. We've switched diapers.

Wednesday
I had my blood pressure checked again. It's still high, but going down very slowly. I gave Macy a bath and got brave enough to properly wash her hair (i.e., without a waschcloth).

That's about it. Life's good. Being a mom is great.