home from the hospital (again)

Tyler's Nov. 27 doctor appointment was not as good as we had expected. He was still 7 lbs. 8 oz., which means that he didn't gain any weight over the weekend. The doctor was concerned (but not alarmingly so) and ordered us to feed Tyler every two hours and return to see her on Nov. 30.

By this time Alex had returned to work and I was taking Tyler to the doctor alone. Not a pleasant visit. When our visit showed that Tyler had actually LOST 2 oz., the pediatrician sent us directly to the emergency room. I was so upset my face looked like a giant tomato, even the whites of my eyes had turned as red as my skin.

Alex rushed to meet us in the emergency room and we spent most of the day and part of the evening there before we were admitted to the hospital. They ran a battery of blood tests to rule out infections and metabolic diseases.

Someone told me that when you become a parent, your heart no longer resides within your chest, but with your child. I can now understand what that means. I've never known pain like that which I felt as several nurses labored to extract blood from our 2-week old baby. His body is so small that they had great difficulty finding adequate veins and had to stab him repeatedly in their search.

I had been concerned about a persistent gooby eye issue that Tyler had developed this past week. The pediatrician assured me that it was just a clogged tear duct and not to worry. However, during our stay the discharge became green showing that it was infected. So in addition to the continuous poking, prodding and blood drawing, Tyler also had to have antibiotic ointment squeezed into his eyelid.

We spent the next three days (discharged the afternoon of Dec. 3) weighing Tyler before and after feeds, weighing his diapers to measure his output and supplementing his breast milk feeds with formula. Sleeping camping-style on a loveseat and a sleeping bag on the floor of Tyler's room proved to be very uncomfortable and added to the stress.

The bright side was that all of Tyler's blood work came back normal and I was able to spend some extensive time with a lactation consultant. She reassured me that both baby and I have the breastfeeding thing down.

So the end result of our hospital stay and "observation" is that we proved that Tyler can gain weight with the proper caloric intake. With no clear or obvious reason for his "failure to thrive," we've made some minor adjustments to his feeding schedule and procedure and will have to monitor him closely.