You Can't Spell Parent without a Little Paranoia.

So on Jack's second night at the hospital the nurses decided to check his bilirubin early since he was looking a little yellow.  Usually they don't do this until the day you discharge, but it was a good thing they did because his levels were indeed high.  He spent that night and the next day (until we left) under their lights to get all the jaundice out.  That super sucked because he's adorable and we wanted to cuddle him, but they only brought him in to eat.  They tested his levels again that morning and it had gone down, so when they told us we still had to have him on lights at home, we were confident that he'd kick the issue in no time flat.

Under the lights at the hospital

They told us about this new-fangled bilirubin blanket that we could use instead of the big, bulky lights.  He just had to be wrapped up in the blanket at all times and we could still hold him and everything.  This sounded great!  We were thrilled at the idea.  And then the guy from the company that rents them showed up at our door.  With a bed.  Darn.

So Jack has to stay in the bed all the time unless he's eating (which he has been doing a LOT).  Last night before going to sleep, Lewis and I were trying to decided where was the best place to put his bed.  This was the start of a very long night...

Lewis: What if I get up to go to the bathroom and I step on him?

Me: It's a bright blue light.  I'm pretty sure you'll see him first.

After hemming and hawing over it, we finally decided to put the bed in the corner between our dresser and the bathroom.  On the dresser was a somewhat large but quite stable stack of picture frames.  It is not there anymore because what if they, which have been up there for months, suddenly decided to tip over?

For the first half hour, either Lewis or I would jump up every couple of minutes to make sure the blanket wasn't blocking the fan or the cord and plug were out of Jack's reach or the blanket wasn't covering his face or he was warm enough or any combination of those.  Or just Lewis would get up and I would call out something for him to check, which of course is what he had gotten up to check in the first place.  It was like a weird dance.

Because he's on the lights, I have to make sure to feed him frequently (every two to three hours) even if he doesn't wake up hungry.  This would invariable start the whole process of checking and double-checking all over again.

At some point in the night, each of us took a turn trying to sleep on the floor next to his bed just in case his pacifier fell out of his mouth and he started getting fussy.  This was not planned by either of us, nor did either tell the other of their decision to do that.

Right before one of the times I fed him, I checked and he had a clean, dry diaper.  He ate (not for very long, he had just eaten like twenty minutes before) and I saw the line on his diaper turned blue to indicate he was wet (he has to wear disposable diapers right now because they cover less skin than his cloth diapers).  Shortly after I handed him to Lewis to change, Lewis started frantically saying, "Help! Help! Help!"  I was confused of course - it was just a diaper.  Then I looked at the vast amount of poop this tiny child had produced.  Holy Hera.  It was a miracle it had all stayed in the diaper.

Jack on the bed at home

Some time around five am I saw - I saw! - a huge spider glowing with blue light crawling across the ceiling towards my baby.  This was unacceptable so I insisted Lewis wake up to go after what turned out to be the smoke detector.

Through it all Jack was a total champ, never letting our crazy paranoia get to him or prevent him from sleeping.  All but one of the times I fed him he was still asleep when I got up.  He is definitely more rested than either Lewis or me, but it's okay.  He needed the extra help after the day we had today.  But that's another story...


He is still on the lights today, much to our dismay.  But he'll be tested again tomorrow and - fingers crossed - all will be well and we can get this nefarious, cuddle-hating contraption out of here.