Jodie posted this on her bulletin board that she frequents. I thought I'd pace along her thoughts. Note near the end... Jackson has some issues with Jaundice and they've got him on a bili blanket, which is a glowing tube of light that we have to leave on him as much as possible for the next few days.
Oh, and more pics on Saturday, I promise. I'm busy schooling my sister at Guitar Hero.
cut/paste--
OK. Sorry it's taken me so long to get on, but we've had A LOT of stuff going on since little Jackson was born!
First of all, let me fill in some of the details that Brian left out. After my water broke at 4am, they tried to check my cervix, but still couldn't feel anything. As the contractions got harder and faster, they still couldn't feel my cervix. The problem was, they wouldn't give me the damn epidural until they could tell how far dilated I was! Finally around 7 the on call doc agreed that I needed the epidural, because it hurt so bad for them to even check me, they weren't getting anywhere. The nurse anesthetist came in to do it, but quickly stopped because she had gotten some spinal fluid leakage. She wanted the anesthesiologist to come in and complete the procedure. Unfortunately, he had just started in on a surgery, and we kind of got lost in the shuffle. So, as I got more and more angry and in more and more pain, they finally sent the nurse supervisor to anesthesiology after about an hour and a half. Just before they walked into the room, I looked at Brian and said "this isn't good. I am feeling that rectal pressure that can mean only one thing." They checked me just before they administered the epi, and low and behold, my cervix was complete, and his head was right there ready to go! So, all the epi did for me was take the edge off so I could push. But wait...you can't push yet until your doc gets here! WHAT?!!! After about 15-20 minutes the doc showed up, and about 5 pushes later, Jackson was born!
Problem was, that leak of spinal fluid with the first attempt was enough to give me a killer headache. By Wed evening and overnight, I could hardly even sit up to nurse. Thursday morning, when we should have been getting ready to go home, I ended up getting a blood patch, where they insert a bolus of my blood into the epidural space to hopefully plug the hole and stop the fluid leak. That kept me there until later in the afternoon, but it worked, so all the better. But, because this is essentially a blood clot blocking the hole, which could pop loose at any strain, I have to be a total couch potato for 2 weeks! Much easier said than done with a newborn and a 2 year old!!
Riley seems to be doing OK. The hard part for her seems to be a little jealousy over the time Mommy is spending with Jackson. That's funny because before he was born, she was such a Daddy's girl, she wanted nothing to do with me!!!
Now for Jackson. He had some coloring issues after he was born, and didn't want to eat for so long. His bili levels in the hospital checked out OK, but they wanted us to bring him in to the pedi today just to double check. Well, today they were high. So, now he has to spend as much time as possible on a billi blanket. My little glow worm!! We have to go in for daily blood work until they are satisfied with the levels. Poor little guy. On top of that, during the last 2 ultrasounds we had before he was born, they noted cysts on his left kidney, so we have to go in next week for a pediatric kidney specialist to take yet another ultrasound. Poor guy is gonna spend the first 2 weeks of his life spending way too much time with the doctors!
On a positive note, breastfeeding is improving. We still have issues with opening up his mouth wide enough, getting the tongue down, and keeping his hands out of the way!! Hopefully tonight will have better sleep with less cluster feeding involved...
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