Jaundice

This morning Dr. Horger the pediatrician came by to see Ronan. He assessed that he was indeed a bit jaundice and so he wanted us to start express feeding him by syringe after every breast feeding. Since I had been pumping we could use that milk instead of formula. The intent was that by giving him more milk after each feeding via syringe we would insure that he was getting plenty of fluids and help him to get rid of the billirubin in his system. Since he was having a hard time staying awake for the feedings and the circumcision can often make a baby even more lethargic afterwards, Dr. Horger decided to wait to do the circumcision until tomorrow morning. There was a possibility of doing it tonight if Ronan gets a lot better today, but most likely it won't be until the morning. Ronan's jaundice is largely due to our incompatibility of blood types. I'm O+ and Ronan is A+. Apparently with that blood type combination it is very common for the baby to have jaundice because they have developed antibodies against my blood. I didn't catch all of the ins and outs of it but that was the basic gist.

After Dr. Horger made his visit and a doctor from Dr. McLean's practice came by to see me, the hospital photographer came by to take pictures of Ronan. I went to the bathroom and tried to make myself as presentable as possible while she took pictures of Ronan and Marshall. Even though we were going to have our photographer friend Dana Hawley come by and take photos when we got home, we decided to purchase the hospital photos after seeing them on her laptop. He will change so much in the first few weeks that I want to capture all of it. If I learned nothing else from Nolan, I learned to appreciate every moment and not take any of it for granted.

Later in the morning our nurse came in to run a hearing test on Ronan and to take some blood from him. She was testing his billirubin level but was also taking a vial of blood to do a statewide standardized test that tests for several different things and we will get the results of that back when we go to the pediatrician. She was really gentle with him and he hardly cried at all when she pricked his heel for the blood sample.

My friend Jessica arrived in town from Florida this morning and came straight to the hospital to see us and meet Ronan. She ended up spending quite a bit of the day with us. In addition to the usual grandparent visitors, our friends Sally and Shea came by to watch The Bachelor with us. We ended up ordering some pizza from Michaelangelo's and Jessica and Marshall went and picked it up. With the nurses coming in and out I missed some of The Bachelor but I have to say I was surprised by his choice. Maybe he will be the first Bachelor to actually make the one he chose work. Usually the men make such horrible decisions that the relationship never lasts.