Jaundice...

I had it as a baby and so of course my baby had it.

But now they are more worried about the consequences of not taking care of it.

So the first three days after he came home from the hospital William had to have blood work done. He was sent home on Tuesday night at a 7 (and a 10 is where it starts getting dangerous), and I had to take him back on Wednesday where they told me later that day that he was now at a 16. So they ordered a Billi Suitcase and a Billi Blanket.

They arrived on Thursday at about 12 noon, so we started him on it right away. We took him back in Thursday afternoon where they said he was at a 12 (after only being in the suitcase for a couple of hours), and so he was getting better, but he needed to stay on it for 24 more hours and come in Friday afternoon again.

He had to be in his suitcase, or tanning bed as we had been calling it, constantly, except when I was feeding him. So my mom and I took shifts staying up with him while he slept in his "tanning bed" that night. I was just worried about him pulling the curtain that covered his face, and exposing his face to the light. My momma is such a good sport.

On Friday we took William in for his third time and they pricked his poor little, not even a week old, foot once again and told us that he was at a 9.8, it was going down, so he didn't have to be in the suitcase anymore. They came to pick up the suitcase the next morning...hallelujah. Here are some cute pictures of him in his "tanning bed" with his "sunglasses" on!!!

pictures!

Happy momma!

Proud daddy.

The baby right after his bath.

Using a cold washcloth to cool my face down, I had a fever.

Enjoying my epidural.

Baby William comes into the World

William Richard Beers came into the world at 3:25 pm on February 8th, 2010
He was 8 lbs. 8 oz. and 21.5 inches long.
This was quite a bit bigger than we were expecting...but we love every inch of him.

To make a long story short...(sorry I am not going to share every gorey detail with you)
My labor started about 4pm on Saturday (Feb 6th) at Costco, I had picked my mom up from my aunts at 12noon. Walking around felt really good, and we got home from Costco, put everything away and at dinner. About 10pm we decided we should go to the hospital. Of course we got there, sat in the the room for just over and hour and was told that I wasn't dialating and they sent me home. They told me not to come back until my contractions were 3 minutes apart and lasting 1 minute. And my labor had to be harder (meaning it would hurt more).
So all through the night (i didn't get any sleep), Richard helped me count my contractions and it was about 6 am Sunday morning when we decided to go back to the hospital because we thought the contractions were harder, closer and longer. But to our disappointment, we waited over an hour and we told AGAIN that we needed to go home and waited for the contractions to get harder....HARDER!!! REALLY!!! The lady at the front desk told us, we would know when it was time, we would just know. Okay, okay, okay!
So we went home, got home around 10am, and of course my mom was disappointed to see us home. I went upstairs to try and get some rest, but it actually felt better to walk around. At about 2pm my mom had a large dinner ready for us, and told me to eat as much as I could. Richard of course was looking forward to watching the SuperBowl, so while he did that, my mom and I walked the stairs in my house and then walked around the block. We did that over and over and over again, from about 4 until 9. It was great! My mom is a good walker. :) Love you mom.
I went upstairs where Richard was working on his homework (the SuperBowl was over), and sat on the bed with him, and that is when I really realized that I prefer walking over sitting. And by 10pm I had decided that we needed to go the the hospital again, and Richard was going to have to finish his paper for English at the hospital. So off we went.
At the hospital, when they checked they found that I had dialated from 1cm to 2.5cm. Yeay! Finally some progress! And after an hour I had dialated to a 3.5cm. Yeay again!
By 3am on Monday morning I was dialated to 5cm and the doctor told me I could get an epidural anytime I wanted it. I decided to get it then, and by 4 am I was nice and comfy. Granted Richard hated the whole "epidural" process, and gave my mom the panic look when he saw the needle. After getting the epidural, my mom decided to go home and get some sleep and told us to call when we had the baby. Ok!
By 7am I had dialated to 8cm and my water had not broken, so the nurse broke my water. According to my mom, when i called her to tell her, breaking my water was going to speed up the process and I should have the baby in the next couple of hours.
Lo and behold, my mom shows up at 10am with balloons and flowers and I had not dialated another centimeter beyond 8. Crud!
They started me on some Petocin and by 2:45 I was dialated to 10cm, and ready to push. By 2:10 they had everything ready for me and I started pushing. Between the nurse, Richard and my mom we had me pushing and counting to 10 like my life depended on it! And at about 3:00 the nurse said that if I pushed one more time the baby was going to come out, and we had to wait for the doctor. I had to wait 20 minutes for the doctor to come, and as soon as he came in he got dressed and I pushed 10 seconds and once more for about 5 seconds and there was my beautiful baby boy. 8 lbs 8 oz, 21.5 inches long and it was 3:25pm.
I cried, Richard cried, my mom cried....and then the baby cried! It was amazing.
Everything else went beautifully at the hospital, no problems. Besides the nurse that was forcing the baby to breastfeed in a way that angered both the baby and myself, everyone was very helpful. The baby was doing well with breastfeeding by the time we left the hospital.
When we left on Tuesday night at about 7pm the baby was healthy and happy. He had passed all of his tests, he was doing we breastfeeding and he had actually GAINED an ounce, which is not common! :) The one problem was his jaundice, which is common in babies I guess, and we would have to take him back to the hospital the next day to check that.
And there is the story!