Today would be Elijah's first birthday. It's a beautiful day outside, so we're taking Gabe and our new arrival, Isaac, out for lunch at one of our favourite places, the Devil's Dyke pub up on the south downs. This is a pretty strange day - we're certainly not celebrating, but we are remembering.
We're both incredibly happy to have Isaac out and healthy and with us. He was born four weeks early (a week earlier than the planned c-section) and he is still tiny, but he's alive, breathing and putting on weight. He's got a touch of jaundice and we're back and forth with hospital visits. Of course, the NHS being the service it is, we can't go to the hospital up the road (the one we moved house to be beside) - oh no. We have to go back to the place where Eli was born and died. They want us to go in today. That's not going to happen.
Reading up on jaundice, it looks like the most likely candidate is breast milk jaundice. We've pretty much ruled out hemolytic problems, any kind of infection, liver disfunction and lack of milk supply. One thing that's never been mentioned to us is to stop breast feeding for a couple of days and try formula instead, to see if the bilirubin levels drop. Given the breastfeeding nazi-ism that is prevalent in every bit of research I've read, I can understand why, but it's pretty ridiculous anyway, so we're going to switch to formula for a day and see whether Isaac's colour changes. Nic will be continuing to express so the milk will be there to go back to in a couple of days.
I hope we can get through the next two days without anything catastrophic happening - here's hoping. It would be lovely to get back to some kind of normal life. Gabe and Isaac deserve that more than anything else.
