Gavin's First Week

I am proving not to be a very good blogger. My posts are so few and far between. However, I am going to work on posting more often. After Gavin was born, we remained in the hospital until Wednesday, when we were finally released. I couldn't wait to bring our baby home. We carefully dressed him in the little sport onesie and placed him the car seat. I sat in the backseat on the ride home and Matt drove slower than he's ever driven before. But it was so wonderful to be home!

The next day, on Thursday, everyone wanted to come and visit. We had quite a busy day! I found it difficult to breastfeed Gavin with so many visitors, since it was difficult to begin with and Gavin and I hadn't quite mastered how to latch him on while trying to conceal myself under a blanket. I began to realize how difficult breastfeeding was, especially with Gavin's cleft and I began to get nervous that maybe he wasn't eating enough.

On Friday, Gavin has his first appointment with his pediatrician, Dr. Shafai. When we arrived, the doctor determined that Gavin was jaundice and wanted us readmitted to the hospital immediately. That was one of the hardest days of my life. Seeing Gavin wearing just a diaper and laying under the bili light was difficult, but when they hooked him up an IV and put his tiny little arm in a split to keep the IV from coming out, I was a wreck. I couldn't stop crying. I don't think I could have gotten through it without Matt. He was my rock. As hard as it was for him, he stayed strong for both us. Each day, they would check his bilirubin level by drawing blood from his heel. That was awful for me also. I wished I could trade places with Gavin so he wouldn't have to go through all that.

During his stay, we also met with several lactation specialists. Unfortunately, Gavin was not eating well and none of them could get him to latch on. We even tried a bottle, a medicine dropper, and a spoon, but none of them seemed to be working well. I was nervous, but determined to get him to eat. We had to squeeze milk from the nipple on the bottle to get anything in his mouth. By Monday, his bilirubin level had dropped enough for us to go home. Once again, we were extremely relieved to be going home. But, our rough road wasn't over yet...