More About Baby Ellie's Birth and Hospital Stay

I should mention it's standard to procedure for any baby that's 8 pounds 13 ounces or bigger for them to check their blood sugar. They do this by taking blood samples from the heel every few hours for I think 12 hours. With Eleanor being 9 pounds 8 ounces, she obviously met the criteria. It's wasn't fun to watch but we knew she'd never remember and we'd probably eventually forget too.

Everything was going great. Her numbers were coming back in the normal range. The lactation consultant came in to work with us. Shortly after she got there, the pediatrician and nurses rushed in and interrupted the nursing session with all kinds of equipment. They explained to me they were "concerned" that Ellie's biliruben levels were so high so soon after birth. They also told me Eleanor and I had ABO incompatibility. This means our blood types aren't compatible so while she was inside me, her body treated my blood as a poison. I remember I had this with Charlotte too but it wasn't nearly as severe. I look at Ellie and realize yes, she's very yellow. How could I not notice that, it seems so obvious? Heywood has some lights but the neo-natologist in Worcester prescribed higher doses of the lights. They set her up in my room with what they had while they tried ordering new equipment. There was also talk of needing to send Ellie to Worcester if she didn't show improvement soon. Talk about scary. Jaundice just sounds so common and not serious but Ellie's case was more than just the usual. With Charlotte, we just sat with her in the window, it wasn't a big deal at all.

They strip Ellie down to her diaper and put her under the lights. She had what they referred to as a "glow worm" underneath her, one big flat panel of lights and another more concentrated light which was the newest technology they had. I could no longer nurse her, we had to give her formula. The explanation they gave was formula would help flush the poison out of her system while breast milk puts it back into her system. I finally had a baby I thought would be good at nursing, would introducing a bottle this soon ruin that? At that moment in time, it didn't matter. Whatever it took, I just wanted to get her healthy as soon as I could. We could only take her out of the lights to feed her for 10 minutes then she had to get right back under the lights. And when we did get to hold her for her feedings, we had to keep the glow worm under her. So there was no real cuddle time. It was so hard to go through but it worked.


Within 24 hours her numbers had stabilized. Oh, that reminds me, to get the levels, they had to take blood from her heels. Poor thing, that was also hard for us. She had finally gotten the all clear on the blood sugar and now this. Every 2 hours, they needed a new sample. We ended up spending one extra night in the hospital for them to monitor Ellie and got the clean bill of health Friday. What a relief!!!