Part 2: Going Home!

Ready to go home!

So, the next part of our adventure was attempting to get everyone discharged from the hospital, it was New Year's Eve and we were ready to go home! We both had enough of the hospital beds (Tyler more than me, I'm sure!) and we were ready to sleep in our own bed in our own house. The staff drew my blood and checked my blood pressure one last time to make sure I was ok. We found out in the early afternoon that my doctor forgot to write my discharge papers before she left and the nurse thought Reece was a little jaundice and wanted to check his bilirubin level before he was discharged. So, about an hour later the nurse comes along with the light meter to check Reece, and evidently my doctor still hadn't called in my discharge order. According to the light meter Reece's bilirubin level was too high to go home! A blood test was ordered to verify the results since the light meter can be inaccurate. While we wait for the lab technician to arrive to draw blood from my 2 day old infant, I'm having a little breakdown because my baby may not be coming home withe me. It seemed like forever before the lab tech arrived, and then I had to watch as he drew blood from my little baby's already pin cushion of a foot. This of course, makes me cry. (Now, in case you haven't seen this procedure, this test requires quite a bit of blood, not the typical little dot like most tests require. This test requires a small vial to be filled, which means that the tech has to pierce his heel and squeeze the blood out until he has the required amount. It takes what seems like forever when your newborn is screaming.) We are stuck waiting again, this time for the on-call pediatrician to come to talk to us about the results. In the mean time my doctor finally called in my discharge order and I was good to go. Unfortunately, I was still waiting to find out if our son would be able to come home with us. Finally the pediatrician comes to our room and we get good news, Reece's bilirubin level was just low enough so that he could come home! We did have to agree to return the next day to retest. No problem, finally around 6 pm, we got to go home as a family!