Warning: Very Long Post Ahead

So I have been wanting to write this down for awhile and since Jonah's first birthday is coming up on us pretty fast I thought now would be a good time. Jonah was born on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 at 10:03 am. He had some fluid in his lungs so they let me hold him for like a minute and then they whisked him off to the nursery to put him on oxygen. I ended up not seeing him again until about 5:00 that evening. (I am not complaining about this I know other people who have had far more traumatic experiences after the birth of their babies.) I also had a very high fever during labor so he was also on some antibiotics to make sure he didn't have any infections. They kept us at the hospital until Friday evening at 7:30 and told us that Jonah was slightly jaundiced and that we should take him out into the sun for about fifteen to twenty minutes a day for about a week and it would clear up on its own. So we went home and I put Jonah to sleep and noticed that his breathing was very wheezy I kept an eye on him until about one in the morning and by then his breathing was very labored so we decided to take him to the ER at Casa Grande Regional Medical Center. Which on a quick side note if you are ever in Casa Grande and are in need of a hospital don't go here, drive the 35 minutes to Chandler. This is not only my opinion but that of many health care professionals and the majority of people in CG. Any way luckily we did not have a long wait and were called back at about 1:30. They hooked Jonah up to the pulse/ oxygen monitor to keep in eye on his oxygen saturation levels. He need to stay above 90 but he kept dropping down to the 80's and sometimes the 70's. Every time it dropped below 92 it would sound an alarm. The nurses in the ER told us that if that happened to just press the button to make it stop. They wouldn't even check on Jonah to make sure he was okay. Someone finally came in and drew his blood around 2:30 am and they told us that they would have the results back in half an hour. Well an hour came and went and we hadn't heard anything and the whole time the alarm was going off on the monitor and no one ever came in to check on Jonah, they would just walk by out room and tell us to hit the reset button. The ER wasn't busy that night and at this point ALL the nurses were at there desk in the middle of the ER eating Ice Cream and gossiping (we could hear the since they were right outside our door). Finally Joe found the ER doctor (who a few months ago tried to rent an apartment from us) and asked her what was going on? She very rudely told Joe to get out of her face (even though he wasn't and had asked her politely) and then she walked out of the room. About an hour after that we still hadn't heard anything and Jonah's monitor was still going off every few minutes when the doctor finally walked by our room and said that they were admitting him and then kept on walking. She didn't even stop to tell us why they were admitting him or anything, we really had no idea what was going on. By this time I could not stop crying (I am not a crier but those post pregnancy hormones really kicked in). Around 6 am I called my grandma who was coming down to CG to help me out for the day to let her know that she didn't need to come after all because we were at the hospital. Well of course she still came down, which I am so glad that she did because she really made us both feel more calm and she helped out a lotdealing with the nurses. I think it was around 7:30 or 8:00 am that they finally told us that Jonah's bilirubin was at a level 18 which 15+ is considered toxic. They keep all babies in the hospital who have a count higher then 15 and don't release them until it is down to a 13. So they finally brought in the biliruben lights about a half hour later. This made me so mad that they waited so long to bring these because they should have known that he needed them at like 3 am which would have given him 5 hours more under the lights. They told us that they were getting a room ready in pediatrics for him and we should be able to be in there within an hour. Well by 11 am we still weren't in the room and I was so completely frustrated and totally exhausted that I made a few totally hysterical phone calls to my mom and Lisa and even my boss (I really could not stop crying for like 15 hours). I am not even sure that they could understand anything that I was saying, but thankfully they just listened to me. Finally they got us into a room at 5:30 that evening. We were so pissed that it took this long and the pediatric unit didn't even have that many kids in there so it wasn't like they didn't have a room available, the whole time we were waiting for the pediatrician on call that weekend to come to the hospital to admit him. I know this probably doesn't sound as traumatic as we felt it was at the time, but it was the staff in the ER that made us feel this way. None of them listened to us and the were all utterly rude and had no compassion. If someone had just taking the time to explain to us what was going on and what was taking so long it would have been a lot easier. I hope this doesn't come off as a pity me because that's not what this is about. I know that a lot of other people have had way worse experiences then us. It is just something I think we need to remember and be so glad that it only took him four extra days in the hospital to get better and now we have this amazing little guy in our lives that I hope we never take for granted. We Love You Jonah!!!

Me cuddling Jonah during one of his breaks from being under the lights.

Sue feeding Jonah with the nice splint on his arm that kept scratching up his face.

Joe cuddling Jonah. Doesn't he look so small there.