emotional.

Can I just say, holy cow I had no idea how emotional I would be post-pregnancy. The crying began about the second day in the hospital. And I seriously have zero control over it. Or at least way less control over it than I ever had before.

I think I've figured out that I tend to be more weepy when I've had very little sleep. The first night we came home was definitely an adventure. And I didn't have the nurses to take him back to the nursery anymore when I needed some sleep. So I very quickly learned that he needed much more attention at night than I had anticipated. God bless those nurses that only brought him to me when he needed to eat at night. So I found myself crying in his nursery that first night home, feeling slightly overwhelmed and definitely tired.

Thankfully, yesterday was much better. I was able to get a nap in the late afternoon while B tended to Nate and I found that really helped me feel better emotionally. It was only 2 hours, but it made a world of difference. I did have a minor meltdown earlier in the day though. We had taken Nate to the pediatrician because they wanted to recheck his bili-ruben levels. The morning we were discharged from the hospital, his levels had gotten up to 13, which is their cutoff level. The pediatrician wasn't thrilled with that but she let us go home anyways, as long as we agreed to bring him to her office the next day for a recheck. Which was yesterday. She called later in the morning to tell us the results, which showed his levels went up to 15 and she wanted us to do a few days of home phototherapy.

I was okay with this idea at first because I thought it involved covering him in a special bili-blanket. Which isn't too big of a deal. But when the home nurse showed up later in the afternoon with this huge contraption of a bed that he MUST lay in naked at all times other than when he's eating or being changed, I flipped out. I mean, this nurse was telling me I had to let him just scream when he was in it, as long as he had been fed and changed. I called my mom sobbing and thankfully she was able to talk some sense into me. Basically, she told me to just do the best you can. But no mother is going to strap their child into this bed and just let them scream. So do the best you can, and if he's crying, pick him up. Normal, rational advice that probably would have been obvious to me if I wasn't so dang emotional.

So we are going on 24 hours with this phototherapy bed now and it's actually going surprisingly well. He actually does sleep pretty well in it. It keeps him fairly warm with the lights and I think he likes that. I've learned that the key is just to make sure he is practically asleep when I put him in it. If he's awake, he just screams. Because he's actually secured to it with this little paper/fabric gown thing that is then velcro-d down to the bed. The only thing you see is his little head and arms sticking out of it. So I'm sure it keeps him feeling pretty secure when he's asleep, but he gets annoyed with it when he's awake.

The nurse is supposed to come back tomorrow morning and she will do another bili-ruben check on him. Hopefully, his levels will have gone back down to normal and he can then finally be free of this dumb bed.