**This blog post was put into a draft and then was discovered 8 months later and published. (I guess after Ava was born, publishing stories on my blog was not so important.)**
Ava's first night home was an adventure to say the least. I don't think I slept at all. Ava cried most of the night and I tried my best to breastfeed every two hours, but she would instantly fall asleep and I had no idea if she was still hungry, if she was done, I didn't know what she wanted...I would lay her down to sleep and she would instantly wake up to scream so I would try to breastfeed again (painfully) and she would instantly fall asleep AGAIN. I just wanted to sleep and I felt like I was going to lose it, keep in mind that I hadn't slept since Thursday! My hands and feet were still swollen from pregnancy and I had incredible pain and tingling in my hands everytime I held her. So here I was, Tuesday morning, attempting for the millionth time to breastfeed an otherwise screaming, wiggling, exhausted baby and I just started crying. I knew that the first few days at home with her would be hard, but I was so incredibly delirious from lack of sleep that it never occurred to me that it might get easier. I told myself it would get easier, but in my head I was barely surviving minute by minute. I just felt overwhelmed and completely lost. Ava was obviously unhappy and I couldn't figure out what to do. My milk really hadn't come in, it was still all colostrum, but I just figured maybe she didn't need milk yet, so I let it go.
Roger went back to work on Wednesday and left me with Ava...alone. I cried. And cried. And cried. Ava was still screaming and falling asleep everytime I tried to feed her and I had no idea what to do. Her first appointment with Dr. Kidd was that afternoon, so I hoped maybe he would be someone I could talk to.
When we got to Dr. Kidd's office we found out that Ava weighed 6 lbs, 15 oz. As soon as I saw that she had lost so much weight I broke down. She had been screaming the past two days because she was starving:( I felt like the worst person in the entire world. Dr. Kidd had us go to the hospital to get her heel pricked for a bilirubin reading. Her level was 18:( She had jaundice pretty badly and needed a bili-blanket. The hospital had a bili-blanket delivered to our house that night and the doctor told me that I needed to supplement with formula so that she could flush all of the bilirubin out of her system. So I did. I fed her formula after every breastfeeding session and we had to keep poor little Ava attached to this hose-paddle type apparatus. Roger and I slept on the couch while Ava slept in her pack n' play attached to the bili-vest. It was sad.
We had to go back to the hospital on Friday to get another blood draw to make sure that she was getting better. That's when we found out that her bilirubin level was down to 10 AND she didn't have to wear her bili-vest anymore! We were beyond happy:) We had family coming in for Ava's baptism the next day and we were happy to be rid of it! The very next day, Ava's one week birthday, family came into town to see Ava and go to church for her baptism. Kathy, Kevin, Jen, Bruce, Kaili and Lexi, my mom, Pete, Grammy and Uncle Dave all came down. Her baptism was wonderful and it was so good to have the family meet her:) What a crazy, emotional rollercoaster of a week!
