A quick summary of Eli's early Dr appt Weeks 1 & 2 and a trip to the ER!

As with most babies, Eli's first trip out of the house was to see his pediatrician. 

(On a side note, getting him a pediatrician was one of the things I had planned to do after Christmas.  Because he came early, we were forced to choose a doctor for Eli before we left the hospital, so we went with the practice recommended by my OB that is just down the street from us.  There are two men in the practice, an older guy and a younger guy.  It's a rule that babies must have a doctor appointment scheduled before they can be released from the hospital, so we figured we'd go see these guys and then we could switch if we didn't like them.  So far, they are OK.  And close to us, so I think we will stick with them for now.)

At 6 days old, we headed out to see the doctors.  Our main concern was Eli's weight, as he had dropped from 7lbs 1 ounce at birth, to 6 lbs 5oz and then up to 6 lbs 7oz when we left the hospital.   

Eli's first trip to the doctor!

Learning at an early age that doctor's
appts always involved a long wait!

After being weighed, we found that Eli had only gained 1 ounce or so.  He looked otherwise healthy, but there was concern with the lack of weight gain.  So we were asked to try harder to fatten him up and come back 4 days later (Tuesday).

I should point out that during this time, I was struggling with breast feeding.  I had very much hoped to feed Eli breast milk for as long as I could.  But I just wasn't producing.  It was heartbreaking to be unable to supply my baby with food.  I'll save the details of this for another post, but, long story short, Eli began drinking almost exclusively baby formula and just 1/2 ounce of my breast milk each day.  We all hoped that the formula would help him gain weight.

After the New Year's Weekend, we headed back to see the doctors for a quick weight check. 

Snuggling with Mommy,
waiting to be weighed.

We were all very happy that he had gone up a few ounces, but they still wanted to weigh him again the next week, just to be sure he was continuing to gain.  They also wanted another billirubin test, because they feared he was slightly jaundiced.  For this, we had to go across the street to the hospital.  Luckily, the blood was collected quickly and the results were fine.   

Then we had even more health excitement with Eli. 

Saturday morning, on his two-week-iversary, Eli woke up with some yellowish gunk in the corner of his left eye.  I wiped it away and didn't think about it ... until a few minutes later, when I had to wipe more away ... and then more ... and his eye just kept getting more red and more gunky and more swollen.  Around noon, I forced Ryan to call the doctor's answering service (because, of course, it was Saturday).  The doctor called right back and prescribed a gel-antibiotic that we needed to put in his eye.  Ryan went out to the pharmacy and in the late afternoon, we finally got the gel to put in his eye.

At this point, his eye was so swollen, it would not open.  Thankfully, Eli was sleeping right through most of this!  He didn't seem to be bothered ... until we tried to pry open his eye.  Ryan and I took turns trying to hold him and keep his head still while the other person tried to get his eye open and get the medicine in. 

It took a while, but we did eventually get it open a bit ... and that's when all this yellow goop just poured out of his eye.  It was like a horror movie!!!!  My two-week-old son's eye was oozing thick yellow fluid!!!

After a few tears (mine), we called the doctor back and he assured Ryan that our decision to take Eli to the ER was probably a good idea.  It was Saturday, so the doctors would not be at their office until Monday morning.

I cannot even describe the misery of the ER.  For 5 hours, Ryan and I sat with Eli and waited.  Surrounded by super-sick people and crazies.  Eli did not seem phased, waking only to eat.  Finally, we were called back to a bed, where we waited another hour.  After the 6 hours, a nurse came in, gave Eli a quick look and said "oh god!" and finally got us a doctor.  She basically yelled at us and couldn't believe that we couldn't deal with this on our own.  She said one of us should hold him while the other put the antibiotics into his eye.  Then it took the doctor, a nurse, me and Ryan to all hold down Eli while the doctor drained his eye and tried to get the antibiotics in.  I am not sure how Ryan and I were supposed to do it on our own if she couldn't handle our 2-week old!

His infected eye, the day after the ER

We had another weigh-in appointment scheduled for Tuesday, so we waited until then to see the doctor.  Happily, the eye was much better and Eli had gained a bunch of weight!  I think he was at about 7lbs 5oz at that point.  This made everyone very happy! 

And then, the doctor said "Did you get the ultrasound done yet?"

"Umm ... what ultrasound?"

The doctor had seen a tiny "skin tag" on Eli's right ear.  In babies, this is very rarely linked to kidney issues (because the ears and kidneys develop at the same time in utero).  And so we headed back across the street to the hospital to get an ultrasound of his bladder and kidneys.  The wait was ridiculous, so we went home and tried again at 6:30am the next day.  Eli was a trooper and was so good for the technician.  The technician took quite a while to look at everything and we watched as Eli peed his diaper and we saw all of the pee leave his bladder!  Crazy stuff.

Eventually we found out that Eli does seem to have a slight kidney issue, but no one seems too concerned and we are scheduled for another ultrasound soon to keep monitoring things.

It was a crazy first month of "health issues" for an actually very healthy baby.  We appreciate the doctors being thorough, but I am hoping Eli won't have too many more visits to the hospital or pediatricians other than the regularly scheduled ones!