So now for the scary part of the birth story (part 2)

I will start with a timeline as this gets complicated quickly.

• Gave birth on Tuesday AM at 2:13 am. Had Sandro call to schedule an appointment with the pediatrician as soon they opened. They misunderstood that it was a birth center baby and scheduled us for Friday midday.
• Went back to the Midwife on Wednesday midday for follow-up appointment. Sadie looked a little yellow so they did a jaundice test. They also gave me my Rhogam shot since I am type O Negative. All looked good otherwise. I also got my whopping cough vax. They told me to hang out in the sun and open up the window and let the sun stay on the baby for the jaundice.
• Thursday afternoon late I get a call from the midwife that the jaundice test had a reading of 15 which was elevated and needed to be look at by the pediatrician. It just so happened we had an appointment the next day for them anyways. They told me it was not an EMERGENCY yet. 
• Friday Morning we go to the pediatrician and she is so angry with the birthing center because she said that we should have gotten an appointment right away with her since the birthing center doesn't really do much for the baby. She was also super worried about the color of Sadie as the yellow was nearly neon by this point. She had us rush to Baylor Medical for an emergency jaundice test.
• At Baylor they do the test and it was at a 28. This is critically bad at this point. So her pediatrician called around to the different hospitals in the area to get her admitted to the NICU for an emergency exchange transfusion. None in the area would take her since she was a birth center baby. She was finally able to get her admitted to Children's Medical in Dallas. 
• The ER nurses literally ripped the baby out of my arms and was working on getting an IV in her. They also made her eat a ton of formula so that it would get her to poop more and start getting the jaundice out faster. She was crying and I was crying and the world seemed to stop.
• Took ambulance during 5 o'clock traffic on a Friday to Children's medical. I had the kindest ambulance driver who let me ride in the front with him. He lived in The Colony like me and was so nice and reassuring to me as he knew I was freaking out by this point. 
• Arrive to 3 doctors & 4 NICU nurses prepping her room and the neonatal head doctor was there and she kept integrating me asking why I chose to give birth in a birthing center. She was also like you do understand the seriousness of this. Maybe it was the fact that I was crying for hours before we arrived and I had a deer in headlights look on my face but of course I knew it was serious. WTF. 
• They they tested the jaundice again and put her under lights and gave her fluids. They tested every hour and slowly her levels where coming down. They did not have to do the exchange transfusion. They did prep blood for it but because it could it was dangerous for a baby of this size and the levels where dropping without it they decided against it.
• During all of this Sadie was crying and whimpering and I was not able to hold her. She would not sleep but for maybe 5-10 mins at a time. By Saturday her level was 17. So she was improving steadily. They put a feeding tube in because I couldn't bf and she was not taking the bottle well.
• Sunday morning she took the turn for the worst. Her levels where stabilizing but because she was so exhausted and fluid was pumped into system her sodium levels dropped and an electrolyte imbalance caused her to have seizures. So they put her on seizure meds. The meds relaxed the brain so much she forgot to breath. So they had her on oxygen and was very close to putting her on a breathing machine. I did not see coming and I thought we where losing her. 
• She had about a billion tests run. MRI, EKG, Eco on her heart, and a Spinal Tap. They could not figure out what caused the seizures and they where worried that she had a brain disorder. Cerebral Palsy was mentioned numerous times by the doctors. She also showed a lot of stiffness in her legs and arms and they thought she could be hypotonic.
• God love the doctors and nurses but NICU doctors like to give you the worst possible outcome. They thought because she was not able to take a bottle and was not nursing well that she would have to leave the hospital with a feeding tube. The baby was exhausted and the meds made her super sleepy. It took about a week to her her somewhat normal again. They spoke of brain damage so many times because of the jaundice level and they did not know where on the spectrum Sadie will be. 
• She was in the NICU for about 10 days but now 9 weeks later she is showing no signs of damage. She is highly monitored with her blood levels since her hemoglobin is low. The pediatrician lays out the red carpet for her every time she goes in for a check. 

So you are probably wondering what caused all of this. They speculate that due to her prematurely the placenta did not get enough time to work its magic. So my blood cells could have attacked her blood cells and since I am RH negative and she is B positive that we had a incompatibility issue.  Thereby allowing the jaundice levels to take over and weaken her immune system. Some jaundice is normal but her levels where not. I am extremely appreciative for her pediatrician quick action as I could imagine that things could have turned out much worse. In the coming months she will be highly monitored and if she has delays we will deal with them as they come. For now she is doing great. Lets just hope it stays that way. 

Wednesday after midwife appointment 

Admitted to NICU Friday

At 9 weeks