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Upcoming Publication

Hey all,

I just heard that Wordriot.org will be publishing my story "Abject Objectivity Goes for a Walk" in their November 15 issue. Rock and roll!

Home Sweet Home

Today, Sue, Molly and I just got home from another 4ish day hospital stay. This time, Jaundice was the culprit. I never really thought that We'd have to have Molly hospitalized for Jaundice (since it's such a common infant thing, but we did, and here's the story). Before I get started, though, don't worry. Everything's fine.

When we were originally released from the hospital, Molly's billirubin level was at 9. Billirubin is the stuff the causes Jaundice...and that stuff is actually broken down red blood cells and other junk that need to be shat forth with great force to be removed from the body.

A day after release, they sent a nurse to our house, who checked Molly's Billi scale, and found that it had gone up some more...to like 13 or so. From there, they prescribed Molly to be in a Wallaby. Wallabies, contrary to popular belief, are not miniature kangaroos. They are clunky heat spitting fiber optic light things for babies. The light stimulates the liver to process things and clean the billirubin out of the blood. Normally, a Wallaby is all you need.
And for 2 days, that's what we did. We put up with the loud, bright, wonky thing. It sucked for changing and feeding time because the Wallaby had to be wrapped around her chest, and it's cord wasn't all that long. The only cool thing about it was that it made Molly look like a glow worm.

Unfortunately, her Billi level kept going up, and on Saturday, we were sent to the hospital. To your left is Molly packed into her carseat. Isn't it darling?

Once we got to the hospital (St. V's instead of Hamot (our pediatrician is a St. V's doctor)), they admitted us to the pediatric ward where they put two big billi lights on Molly and drew a metric fuckton of blood before the doctor came in and started screaming at them for drawing far more blood than necessary. When we got to the hospital, Molly's billi level had already dropped a bit--down to 20 from 21 from the morning's check. The doctor had Molly admitted to the NICU, and Since Sue is breastfeeding, we got to keep the room in Pediatrics until things blew over. Sue also got to eat foods on the insurance company's bill because of the breastfeeding. I got to scrounge.

By Sunday, Molly's Billi level had dropped to 12.x and things were looking a lot better. The doctors and nurses also explained to us why things got so bad. Basically, all babies will have jaundice to some minor degree as their bodies expel the billirubin, but Molly's was a little worse than normal because of an AB blood type incompatibility between Sue's and Molly's blood. So when Molly was born, her body killed off all of Sue's blood in her system in addition to the other blood cells of her own, and a giant surplus built up in her system. Furthermore, babies don't start making new red blood cells until all the extra ones created in the womb are recycled. So once this stuff started building up in Molly's system, it made her very tired. The tiredness made it hard for Sue to get Molly to eat, which meant that Molly got dehydrated and then stopped peeing and pooping, and thus that's how we ended up in the hospital.

So they put Molly on an IV and had Sue continue feeding her as normal (though we did have to bottle feed the breastmilk at first), and slowly but surely the Billirubin level came down. On Sunday and Monday, Molly had a really ugly rash from the Billi, but that's pretty much gone now, as is most of that classic yellow skin coloring.

During our stint in the hospital, Sue and I were a nervous wreck, but we were very thankful that Molly only had Jaundice and not something more serious. Sue's mom ferried back and forth between the hospital and the house, taking care of us (making sure I was eating), and the cats, and helping with the phone calls and keeping everyone informed. She did a super job at keeping Sue and I sane during this rough time, and Molly's so lucky to have so many concerned and loving grandparents.

Notice the little sleepy eyes drawn onto Molly's "VR" goggles there in that last picture. One of the nurses did that. We thought it was awesome. In fact, all the nurses in the NICU were fantastic. Another one made a little Raggedy Anne namecard for Molly once things started getting a little more crowded on Monday. Everyone at the hospital did a wonderful job at taking care of our daughter, and because of that, we're home and happy again.

Project Dad

You heard it. On 10/1/2007 at 20:50 after 30 hours of labor involving way too many hours of relentless usage of Pitocin, my wife and I were rewarded with the most beautiful little creature love and marriage can buy: Our very own Molly Marie. Look at her, isn't she darling? I surely think so. Vitals: 7lbs 13oz, 20 1/4 inches. She's been happy, healthy, and an all around great baby in the house.

I'll be posting more soon, but good lord, she's darling.