Cecilia update

Cecilia is a week old tomorrow.

It’s been a long hard week. The anxiety before Cecilia’s birth has been replaced with sleep deprivation (from having to nurse Cecilia every 2-3 hours), me catching Fulton’s bug on Wednesday and Adam catching it on Thursday. Cecilia lost more than 10% of her body weight at birth (the “allowable amount” by the pediatrician’s books) and had climbing bilirubin levels associated with her jaundice.

When Cecilia’s bilirubin climbed to 15. 6 on Friday from 13.5 on Wednesday, the Birthing Center had to report and we asked them to do so as well, to our pediatrician. He wasn’t so concerned about that as he was that she had not started gaining weight yet and had lost more than 10% of her birth weight (BW= 7 lbs 8.5 oz and dropped to 6 lbs 10.5 oz). Of course he sent our favorite nurse, Kay, to be the messenger of not so good news. She called last night and told us we had to go in for another weight check and bilirubin check this morning and that Dr. Guerrero HIGHLY RECOMMENDED us to supplement with formula. The worse part–if Cecilia continued to lose weight, it would mean hospitalization.

Kay was so sweet and consoling through my tears. She even stopped by last night with formula samples to get us through the weekend and so much support. After 5 years with this doctor and his nurses I was so touched that she was willing to come to our home and help me get through this. We ended up supplementing about an ounce of formula after each feeding last night on top of pumping and hand expressing every spare drop of milk we could. Adam has been such a great help and so wonderful wiping my tears away.

So this morning we had an “urgent care” visit. Cecilia gained an ounce over night. And her bilirubin level is back down to 13.9. Praise God!

I find myself very sad that I can’t make enough milk for my baby girl. God’s way of making me humble once again I suppose. I know that this is such a small cross and I must remember that there are people who would trade this cross for own in an instant and for that I’m even more humbled.

I know that this too shall pass. Please continue to keep Cecilia’s weight gain in your prayers.