On Thursday, October 26th they told us that Alayna had jaundice. Her bilirubin level was high. Apparently this was caused by the fact that our blood types were incompatible. I was O positive and Alayna was A postitive.
They started her on a bili blanket to try to bring the levels down. The blanket was actually a long pad illuminating a special blue light that was placed under her t-shirt. It was pretty ackward to move her around because the pad was attached to a tube.
They retested her blood by pricking her heel and squeezing the blood out. It broke my heart every time they did it. She would cry and cry. I hated watching her in pain.
On Friday when they retested her, they found out it had went up a little. They told us that she may be placed on a bili bed or be put in the special care nursery with the lights over top of her. This was a little frightening even though they assured us that her levels were not dangerously high.
They decided on the bili bed. She would need to stay on this all day and at least overnight. I was officially being discharged on Friday but she would have to stay. The hospital was great because they said that they would just transfer her to pediatrics on paper and allow us to stay in the same room. This meant that we could still stay with her.
The bili bed looked like the bottom half of a tanning bed with a bunting that she fit inside. She had no clothes on underneath except for her diaper to allow the light to penetrate her skin better. She did so great with staying content in the bili bed. At night she looked like a little glow worm.
We thought that we would be discharged on Saturday but her levels were still higher than they wanted. They were coming down but slowly. Brandon and I both continued to stay with Alayna at night. We were both exhausted at this point because as everyone knows you don't sleep in the hospital. They kept coming in and checking her vitals.
On Sunday we finally were discharged. She had to come home with a bili blanket until her levels came down. On Monday, they sent out a home health nurse to take her blood to check her levels. They were still a little high so she would have to stay on for at least another day.
On Tuesday the nurse came back in the morning to recheck her blood. We also had an appointment with the pediatrician. Things went well and the doctor felt that if her levels were continuing to decrease she could come off of the bili blanket. Later in the afternoon the nurse called and said that we could take the blanket off and just put her in the sun.
The nurse came back out on Wednesday morning to check her blood to ensure that her levels did not rebound up again. Thankfully everything was great. She was finally done with all of the blood draws!!!
