A mostly better day

[flea]

A relatively quiet night, after we got Casper to bed at ELEVEN PEE EM OMGWTF. Working out how to manage the night shift, have enough light to see to get Dillo nursing without turning on the lights, that stuff. Finally a little cooler.

In the AM, Casper off to school for Splash Day (swimsuits and mister on the playground), and we emailed pictures to Miss Katrina to show her classmates. Stephanie from her old class is moving up this week, and she gave mr. flea a hug when she saw him. We had a quiet day and got caught up a bit with friends and family.

Then to the doctor at 3 and as I expected, the exact same routine we went through with Casper: jaundice with fairly high billirubin levels but not high enough to treat, but they recommend supplementing with formula, plus a relatively big weight loss already. (The numbers: born 8/10, 8/6 at 24 hours, 7/14 at 60 hours; billirubin 7.9 at 24 hours, 13 at 60 hours, they treat at 16.) We're to supplement with formula tonight and see them again tomorrow. Happily this time we didn't come home and have great spasms of weepiness and parental failure, as we did with Casper. This time it's "I guess my babies lose more weight than average and tend to jaundice, but Casper was fine and it was not as big a deal as we felt it was at the time."

I'm not sure we actually will give him formula; we gave Casper a couple of ounces, but this routine occurred on day 5 for her and she hadn't been pooping (and my milk still wasn't really in). My milk is starting to come in as of this morning and I think Dillo is definitely getting more now; we'll watch for wet diapers overnight and if there's no noticeable change we'll consider formula, or maybe even just water, in the morning. Formula didn't agree with Casper - made her very very annoyed and gassy - we had a horrible night the night we gave her some.

We may bathe the boy-o tonight; his hair is rather greasy. He looks different now, mr. flea says "much cuter," though ivory-eyeballed and given to the wizened old man stinkeye.

Comments

[vwbug.livejournal.com]

Oh, good. I'm glad today was a little better.

Also...

Happily this time we didn't come home and have great spasms of weepiness and parental failure, as we did with Casper. This time it's "I guess my babies lose more weight than average and tend to jaundice, but Casper was fine and it was not as big a deal as we felt it was at the time."

This kind of stuff makes me so angry at doctors sometimes. There is no reason why a brand new parent should come home from their first doctor's visit feeling like their doing/have done something wrong. They need to spend the time validating and encouraging, and I think sometimes they "forget" that that is part of their job.

I was talking about a similar sort of thing with my PCP today. I've been having communication issues with my allergist, who is supposed to be one of the best in the country. Two appointments ago, I left so frustrated, because I just felt like we weren't on the same page about things. Then, at the last appointment he had a medical student following him, so he read the note from the last appointment. The end of the note said we discussed something that we *totally* did not discuss, and, really, would have left me so much less frustrated. I was updating my PCP on the situation today, and she went and looked up his note on the computer and was all, yeah, he does say that in the note, but I remember how frustrated you were. I was like, maybe there was a language issue or a communication block or something, and she said, "Nope. He never told you. In his head he "told" you, but forgot to actually mention it." And I was kind of defending him and giving him the benefit of the doubt and stuff, and she stopped me and said, "Valerie, I have never known a patient so on top of her healthcare. You were frustrated about that very issue. He didn't tell you."

I just think there's this block. They get so used to the saying the same things over and over that eventually they just don't say them anymore. And, really, it's kind of a big problem and causes difficulty for the patients.

[vwbug.livejournal.com]

"their" should be "they're". Sometimes I can type what I mean.

[ste-noni.livejournal.com]

I know I've gone on about this before, but what vw describes was my exact experience with the LC 3 days after Ellie was born. I walked in feeling great and left feeling like a bad mom.

[ste-noni.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! I just sent you an e-mail, but I wanted to say it here too. I was offline for a few days so I missed the big news and I've been avoiding b.org for a while so I just this afternoon finally caught up enough. Like I said in my email, if/when you feel like sharing, I can't wait to hear all about it. Is it easier the second time? Do you feel more knowledgeable about parenting? I'm guessing yes based on this post and that's good to hear.

I'm so excited for all of you. I hope Casper is adjusting okay and Peter is settling in well.