Severe jaundice

On the third day, we were supposed to be discharged from hospital. But Karyn was tested to have quite severe jaundice. Her bilirubin level was 12.6, way too high above the safe level 10. So she had to remain in hospital and be under light therapy.

I was so saddened by this news and cried for so long. I didn't want to go home without our baby. Plus I couldn't breastfeed her on demand if we were to go home. I wanted Karyn to be on total breast feeding, that means not to give her any water, formula milk nor feed her by the bottle. So we decided to extend our stay by one day and await the second blood test the next day.

The next morning, we were so anxious while waiting for the blood test results. To our dismay, Karyn's bilirubin level had only fallen by 0.5 to 12.1, still too high to be discharged.

Mummy and Daddy were too bored staying in the hospital with nothing to do. So we decided to discharge and go home, returning every couple of hours to the hospital to breastfeed Karyn.

It was a very tough decision as it meant no breast milk during night time as I needed to rest and couldn't possibly run to and fro between home and hospital throughout the night. Daddy would also be too exhausted making so many trips in the day to sustain throughout the night.

Finally, after much emotional and psychological struggle, we made the decision of letting the nursery staff feed Karyn formula milk at night and I would rush back EARLY in the morning to breastfeed her.

So on Thursday, we were totally exhausted by the shuttling and on Friday morning, we rushed back to the hospital at 8 a.m. so that Karyn wouldn't be given too many feeds of formula milk. Fortunately, to our ecstasy, she passed her second blood test (borderline 10.4) and we could bring her home. Yay!!!