The night John Henry was born we were told that he had Jaundice and they wanted to put him under the lights in the nursery. We were concerned but the doctor assured us that this was common and after a day or so under the bright lights, our boy would be fine. To be honest, I wasn't too worried and actually thought it was God's way of giving me a good night sleep since they wanted to keep him in the nursery. We did get some sleep that night but it wasn't worth the frustration that was ahead of us. John Henry spent the rest of his time in the hospital under the lights and the doctor sent us home with a small portable photo-therapy "light" bed on Saturday. We were told that our baby had to be on the bed at all times, with the exception of 30 minute stretches every three hours that were needed to feed and change him.
(John Henry getting photo-therapy in the cradle)
Thirty minutes is not a long period of time. Especially with a newborn. Jay and I worked hard to stay within the 30 minute requirement. It meant we both woke up with the baby to get the bottle ready (no time to breast feed), feed the baby, change the baby, wash the stupid straight jacket blanket that he had to be in on the bed, and then get him back in. There was no time to just hold and love on him. Not to sound immature - but it sucked. What made it worse was that for the next four days, we had to go back to the hospital to get his blood tested to check the Jaundice levels. My poor baby had to have his heels pricked to get the blood. By the end of the week, his sweet little feet looked like he was dragged across shards of glass. As his levels continued to rise, Jay and I felt more defeated. We were doing everything that was asked and our sweet baby wasn't getting better. 
(Since we couldn't pick him up, we had to find other ways to love on him.)
By Wednesday, we finally got some good news. His levels were on the way down and we could take him off of the bed. Although our sweet pumpkin had a little orange left, he was on the road to recovery and we could love on him the way we wanted. We celebrated with a quick trip to visit BeBe and CeCe and then went home, had dinner, and opened a bottle of champagne. We ended our celebration by burning the stupid light bed blankets that we had been washing every few hours for the past four days. It was glorious.
(A family of blue.)
(Sumner, Holland, Sherridan, and Wendy came to congratulate John Henry)
(Not too much orange left.)
(I'm not joking when I said we burned the stupid light bed blankets.)
I'm sure we'll look back one day and say it wasn't as big of a deal as we thought it was when we were in the moment. Maybe not. Maybe we'll say it robbed us of the first few days with our new baby. Regardless, it happened, we got over it, and we're on to bigger and better things.
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