Anna's first few days

Friday morning after she was born, the pediatrician came in and told us that she heard a heart murmur in Anna. She called cardiology from Children's Mercy and they were going to come and see her and do an echocardiogram later that day. She also told us that Anna had some jaundice and was going to be on a bili bed for the day while waiting for cardiology. We were only allowed to take her out to feed her.

Cardiology came and did the echo, and they found 2 small holes in the bottom of Anna's heart. They are common, and he suspects they will get smaller and close on their own. We have a follow up echo on November 6 with him.

We had already been geared up to go home Friday morning, and we were delayed. Then we were ready to go home after the cardiologist came. When the nurse called the pediatrician to discharge Anna, the pediatrician decided she needed to stay another night because of the jaundice. We were so disappointed and just wanted to go home. The hospital was awesome though! Even though I had been discharged, I was allowed to stay in my room for no charge to be near the baby.

They drew another bilirubin level Saturday morning, and the pediatrician came in Saturday and told us her bilirubin had still risen more despite being on phototherapy. At that point, Anna had to be taken to the NICU and put under double lights. We could take her out every 3 hours to feed her, and that was it. The NICU nurse was amazing though and so sympathetic and helpful. They were going to redraw her bilirubin at 6pm so we could see how much it dropped and if we could go home. After Anna's 11:30 feeding, we went and picked the kids up from my Mom's to take them to lunch and spend some time all together. It had been a rough week on them and they just wanted all of us home. I went back to feed her at 2:30 and Jason brought the kids home. At that point, I was resigned to be there at least until Sunday.

They drew her bilirubin again, and it came back a couple of points lower, and the pediatrician let her go home! She still had to be on the bilibed all of the time at home. This morning, we had an appointment to go in to the pediatrician and have her level rechecked and have her looked at. Her level was up slightly from where it was Saturday evening, but she looked good, started gaining her weight back (Friday morning, she was down to 7# 5oz, and we don't know if she lost any more. This morning she was back up to 7# 8oz), isn't yellow anymore, is eating well, and just seems to be doing great overall! So, we got to leave her off the lights today, but she will sleep on them tonight. We will probably put her on them a little bit tomorrow morning, but then we have a busy day, and the pediatrician doesn't want her on them after early tomorrow. She goes back in Wednesday to be rechecked, and the doctor wants her off the lights before being rechecked.

So, we have had a bit of a roller coaster that we didn't experience with any of the others. On a funny side note, Anna sucks the same two fingers Sarah sucks. Well she tries to...we keep taking her fingers out and putting a pacifier in her mouth. We already learned from Joshua who was crazy about his suckies that they are still easier to get rid of than the finger sucking as evidenced by the fact that Sarah is 4 1/2 and still sucks them!

I don't have many pictures on my computer from the first few days (though Jason does), but you can check out facebook to see other pictures. Here is one of Anna on the lights.