Bennett's Birth-2 weeks later

I was started on Cytotek on the night of Sunday, May 5th.  The next morning, they started Pitocin at 6 am, and Bennett James was born at 7:11 pm.  I was so glad to be able to avoid a c-section after all the other women in my family have had to have them.  He weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz.  We tell him he is so special because he was born with a double crown, with one being clockwise and the other counter-clockwise.

When he was born, we noticed he wasn't crying as much as we expected.  I heard a nurse tell another nurse that his temp was 102.9.  After being allowed to try breastfeeding for a couple minutes, the nurse took him away after noticing he was working too hard to breathe.  The pediatrician came in a few minutes later to say they had started an antibiotic because they thought he had an infection, but with newborns, you can't wait to find what the illness is before treating it since they are so fragile.  After a few hours, they thought he was doing well enough to allow him to come in the room with us.  For 2 days, I was allowed to breastfeed him every 3 hours and he was kept in the nursery the rest of the time.

We thought he was getting better enough to go home, but on the day he was supposed to be released, the nurses thought his breathing had gotten worse.  Based on the retraction with his breaths, he was admitted to the NICU and started on more antibiotics.  He was too dehydrated to get a good spinal tap, so we had to wait 3 more days for that.  Several lab tests came back abnormal.  The NICU doctor said his liver enzymes were at levels backwards from what she normally sees in abnormal results, so a specialist was called in.  He had an abdominal ultrasound, which came back normal.  Thankfully, his liver enzymes leveled out on their own after a few days and his spinal tap returned all negative results.  The doctors said we will never know what he had for sure other than suspecting it was an infection.  He was on 4 antibiotics and spent 10 days in the NICU, with 2 of those days under the jaundice lights.

 It was the scariest thing we have ever been through.  Thankfully, we were allowed to stay on the PEDS floor the whole time since I was bf'ing every 3 hours.  I'll never forget all those walks down the hall to the NICU and having to have help to get my baby out of the crib because of all the wires.  We are so glad to have him home now.  I hope the pic works.  Sorry this was so long!