baby, part 2

Bah. So cute.

It is amazing how quickly you fall in-love with this little someone that you hardly know!

It makes it tough to watch them, all tiny and defenseless, fight through little struggles of their own.

Our little girl came out a little jaundiced {I joked that it was due to all the carrots I ate during pregnancy, since I thought she looked more orange than yellow}, so she had to snuggle up with a little BiliBlanket for the first few days of her life.

Totally cuter than my Gloworm I had when I was a kid. Just sayin'.

As we were getting ready to discharge and pack our bundle-of-joy in her carseat, the nurse informed us that Kemry had a fever above their worry-level, so she would have to be admitted to the NICU for a few days. 

I was hanging strong as the nurse told us all of the tests they were going to run...until she said "lumbar puncture."

WHAT?

You are going to do a spinal tap on my 2-day-old baby?!?

The nurse left, I turned to Tyrel, and I freaked out. We were both sobbing because we had no idea how serious this was, and the doctors were certainly not reassuring us with "She is going to be fine" comments.

Tyrel and I were discharged but decided to room-in at the hospital so we could at least feed her when she needed and could see her when we wanted.

So. The next few days were filled with waiting. And hoping. And praying.

Our poor little girl was hooked up to all sorts of machines, had a splint on her arm for her IV, and was sporting all sorts of tiny band aids.

She was the only infant in the NICU, so I was lovingly-known as "NICU Mom."

The nurses were wonderful. One even made a little mobile to put above Kemry's crib so it seemed a little more homey.

We were free to come-and-go and had to be creative to occupy our time. Tyrel hooked up our PS3 to our room's TV so we could watch Netflix and Ty could play sports games.

We totally took advantage of the "free" food while we were there. I cannot tell you how many 4-packs of Oreos I ate. Apparently Sunkist Orange Soda was not popular in October. Or November. Or December. Maybe January would do the trick?

After 48 hours of waiting and waiting for tests to culture, all her results came back negative. We were finally good to go home. We have no idea what caused her high fever, but by that point, we didn't care. We just wanted a healthy baby at home with us.

One really tired mommy and one really tired daddy packed up one really precious (and still yellow-colored) baby and went home...really tired :)