June 20th, 2011: First Pediatrician Appointment

I apologize for documenting day by day details. I am hoping to print this blog out one day, and I want to remember as much as possible!

Today was Wes's first pediatrician appointment. We were unable to get in with our actual doctor, so we saw another doctor in the practice, Dr. Heaton. The nurse came into the room and told us to undress Wes and take his diaper off so she could weigh him. As we were trying to weigh him, he peed EVERYWHERE! It was too funny. I guess they are used to it, because she barely blinked an eye. I cleaned him up and we tried once more. Big boy was up to 6 lbs 12 oz (6 lbs 9.8 oz at birth)! We had been giving him formula along with the breastmilk I was pumping. I was breastfeeding him every other feed, but I wanted to make sure he was gaining weight and I wanted to get rid of the bili blanket asap, so we decided to continue supplementing him until the doctor gave me the okay to strictly breastfeed. Chad and I had taken Wes back to the hospital the day before to have another bilirubin level drawn. A nurse had called me on Sunday with the results and said that the level had dropped, but the doctor at the hospital said to go ahead and leave him on the blanket until we saw our doctor. Dr. Heaton laughed when we brought Wes to his first appointment, because he did not think he needed to go onto a bili blanket in the first place. He thought the doctor's at the hospital were being cautious due to the fact that I am a NICU nurse. He said that Wes's light level was over 20 now and his bili level was below 12 (on Sunday). Dr. Heaton said we could have another lab drawn to be 100% sure that it was continuing to drop, but he said he was very confident that he did not need the blanket anymore. We decided to skip another lab draw since our poor baby had been stuck every day of his life up until this point! He also gave us the okay to stop with the supplementing and to go to strictly breastfeeding. He told me that his weight gain was great and that I could bring him in the following week to be sure he was still gaining once he was only breastfeeding.

Dr. Heaton did a head to toe assessment and said that Wes looked perfect! FINALLY some good news! As bad as it sounds, I was almost expecting something to be wrong because of the setbacks we had experienced thus far. We were so excited that for the first time since he was born, we were able to hold our son without any medical equipment attached to him!!