First Doctor's Appointment

Remington and I got out of the hospital finally yesterday at 11:30. His biliruben was finally low enough. We were and still are having trouble with breast feeding. He just doesn't want to latch on anymore and/or he won't wake up to eat. It's so frustrating and emotionally draining. I know Landon feels bad too and helpless that he can't do anything to help.

The doctor wanted to see how Remington's biliruben was going today, so I made an appointment right away for 10:40 this morning. It was our first outing, and definitely my first alone with Remington. Landon had to go back to work. It went really well getting him in the carseat and in the doctor's office. When I get there, there's another couple of babies- one week old little girl- and a bunch of kids. I wait with Remington to do his lab work. I feel so sad for him, he's had his heels pricked so many times! I took him back to the lab and the nurse pricked his foot. He was sound asleep the whole time at the doctors, so he didn't cry that much. Then the nurse had to fill up a little vile with his blood. This took forever as she squeezed his foot to get all the blood. I felt so bad for him, it almost made me cry. I'm surprised I didn't too, since I've been very emotional lately. Then she couldn't get enough blood from that heel, so she had to prick his other one. She even commented about how she didn't want to have to prick his second foot because he'd already had it hit so many times and you could tell it was tender. At least he didn't cry that much, but I'm still sure it hurt so bad. Poor baby!

After the lab, we still needed to see the doctor. I go back to sitting in the waiting room. It was cute to see the babies and I had two people come up and ask about Remington. It was the saddest thing though. This looks at Remington and tells me that they just lost a grandbaby on Friday. He was premature and only lived a short time. The parents were in the waiting room having to watch all these little kids and two newborns when they had just lost their baby. I felt sooooo sad for them. It would be incredibly hard to have to do that. It made me extremely grateful for Remington and his health. We may be having trouble with feeding that tears me apart at times, but at least he's here and healthy. Even the jaundice is no big deal compared to what could happen. I'll pray for that family and hope they get through that tough time.

We go to see the doctor and first Remington was weighed. All babies loose weight from what they are at birth and Remington weighed 7 lbs 2 oz. today. This is up from 7 lbs 1 oz. yesterday at the hospital when he was discharged. This is a good sign. At least what little he's eating is enough. He's not loosing weight, which is good. The doctor also told me that his biliruben is up to 13 again (which we knew it would, but it's not too high). We talked about feeding and I showed he the chart I've been keeping about how much I feed him (from the bottle) and how long he nurses. It also charts his diapers. She seemed to think this was all good. I told her too that we were going to buy a breast pump tonight, so that at least he's getting that instead of formula. I needed to buy a pump eventually to go back to work, so now we're just having to get it early. The doctor's appointment gave me confidence that what I'm doing, even though it's hard, seems to be working. We have our 2 week appointment next Thursday (12th), so we'll see how it's going then.