Liv was jaundiced, but so were Jack and Tor a few days after they were born so I wasn't all that concerned. Brian and I took her to her follow up (after birth) pediatrician visit and the doctor checked her bilirubin level. I thought she was about an 18 or 19 like Jack based on how jaundiced various parts of her body were. The doctor thought the same thing. We were both surprised when her level came back a few hours later as almost 24 which is extremely high. We had to rush her to the hospital for immediate treatment. I could not stop crying because I knew the possible complications for such a high level.

My doctor called ahead so she was admitted directly to the floor. The doctors took her to the treatment room to draw her labs and to start her IV. It took them almost an hour, she was stuck several times. I cried about that too. I could hear her crying and it tore my heart out. Ironically I have been the nurse to take children and babies to the treatment room to start IV's and draw labs hundreds of times. This was the first time I was on the opposite side. The doctors were great and gave her a pacifier with sugar water to help calm her down as they were sticking her and that did help.

When they brought her into the room they immediately stuck her in an incubator for phototherapy to reduce her levels. She was naked under blue florescent lights and they placed her on top of a bili blanket. She had to wear felt eye patches over her eyes to prevent retinal damage from the lights.

For the first 24 hours everything had to be done under the lights in the incubator. She had to be bottle fed, burped and changed. The only time I got to hold her was if she soiled the blankets (her diaper had to be left open so as much skin as possible was exposed to the lights). We changed the blankets super fast so I held her for less than 2 minutes each time. She got hundreds of kisses during that time :).

By Saturday afternoon her bili level had come down enough that the doctors said I could hold her for 20 minutes every few hours to feed her. Saturday night her levels were down to 13.1 so they turned off the lights. Sunday morning her bili levels rebounded (went up) to 14.1 so we had to stay through the afternoon until we got the results of the afternoon labs. She was down to 13.5 so she stabilized and we were allowed to go home.

Wow, what an ordeal. She had to be fed every two hours. So if she had a feeding scheduled for 2am, I had to start pumping my breast milk at about 1:40, then wake her up and change her diaper, feed her, burp her, get her back to sleep, wash all the pump stuff and the bottles and then be ready at 3:40am to do it all over again. Sometimes there was only about 20 minutes between when I was done and when I had to start over again. In the 48 hours we were there, I got five hours of sleep. Two one hour naps and then a three hour nap (because when the nurse woke me up to feed her I fell back asleep). Ugh. But it was all worth it to get her healthy again.

The boys came to visit me on Saturday afternoon and the brought me grilled shrimp from Legal Seafood, it was so good. Keisha came over to the house Saturday night and watched the boys so Brian could come to the hospital and hang out with us. We ended up watching UNC lose. Then the boys came to the floor on Sunday night to pick me up. They were so good. They love hospital beds :). I missed them terribly so it was so great to see them and get hugs and kisses.

The doctors and the nurses were great. They made everything so much easier. Not that I would want to do this again, but it was a really good bonding experience for me and Liv!