New Personnel Update
Just a quick note for those of you keen to know more about the newest member of our editorial team. As with Helena (who was also a month premature), Imogen proved susceptible to jaundice, which is something they watch even more closely in pint-sized newborns (a typically Wombattish explanation, almost certainly wrong in some points, of jaundice: it's caused by the buildup of bilirubin -- essentially dead blood cells -- in the body, as the newborn liver isn't really functioning well enough to handle them, and so beyond the yellowish color, the doctors monitor it by taking a bit of blood and measuring the bilirubin levels). High levels can cause a variety of bad things to happen if left untreated.
Imogen's bilirubin level was fine when we left the hospital Sunday, but turned up too high for our pediatrician's liking on Tuesday, so that night found us back at the hospital, checking her in for a stay under the "bili-lights" -- essentially, blue-spectrum light that actually breaks down the bilirubin in the skin. Theresa stayed in the room with her, and they were there overnight through Wednesday afternoon. Imogen didn't mind much, as they put her in a warmed isolette for the light therapy -- but putting on/removing her little blindfold eye-protector was upsetting.
The phototherapy worked as it usually does, and she was back at home yesterday evening. Unfortunately, this made the already challenging task of getting a preemie to feed properly that much more exhausting; hospitals are lousy places for nursing mothers to get any rest. I can't imagine the hell that people with seriously ill children go through.
We're all a bit loopy here (the less so for having grandmotherly assistance), and Helena is predictably more needy and short of fuse than normal. But on the whole, every experience I have with hospitals makes me feel astonishingly lucky have had the minor issues with the kids that we've so far been faced with. Our hospital -- like, I suspect, most -- is an almost 50/50 mix of heroes and villains. When one's shift nurse or the resident looking in on you is thoughtful, pleasant, and acting with the child's welfare in mind, one feels the burden is considerably lightened.
When this is not the case, one composes angry letters in ones mind. I will not speak here of the resident who "bumped" us from the discharge process in order to move his own wife to the front of the line (we'd already been treated to his lack of a bedside manner), nor of the troglodyte we faced in the admissions office as we arrived on Tuesday night, who couldn't check us in slower and acted affronted about our requests for a bed for Theresa to sleep in next to her daughter; instead, I'll focus on the chief resident of pediatrics, who personally appeared out of nowhere, inquiring sweetly if the baby he'd been told (by our amazing doctor) would soon show was perhaps being unnecessarily delayed in the Land of Paperwork, and further suggested that perhaps the treatment could be gotten rolling immediately and the i's dotted along the way. Him, I'd like to remember.