We're home!

For the first few days, life at home was uneventful except that Dawson doesn't like sleeping at night. He sure is a cutie and zoey sure loves holding him!



His coming home outfit- he left the hospital at 5 lbs 10 oz, so the newborn outfit drowned him!


As you can see in these pictures, he is starting to look more and more yellow


Newborn picture so we can see how big he is getting


We went to the dr and Dawson was jaundice. They recommended we out him in the sun so I had him on a makeshift. Bilibed and sat him in the sun like this a few times a day . It didn't help


As you can see in these pictures, he is looking really really yellow especially compared to zoey. I tried not nursing him for 12+ hours to see if it was breastmilk jaundice and that didn't help at all . It was very frustrating to have his levels going up and up and not doing anything about it


A normal level for bilirubin in a baby Dawson's age is under one, his level got to 19 (anything over 20 requires them to go into the hospital for light
Therapy) so we had home health bring us the lights as home so that we could get his bili down


My bionic baby. He was so tiny he hated being on the bed because he didn't feel secure

Luckily, there was also a "blanket" light that looked like a lit paddle so we kept that on him 24 hours a day. It was exhausting.

The lights were setup in the family
Room and I didn't want to sleep downstairs alone so we "camped" for 5 nights on the air stress. Zoey thought it was a fun game but Jed and I were so tired. He slept on the mattress with zoey and I slept sitting up on the couch holding Dawson because he didn't want to be put down and I had to keep the light on him

Such an adorable face!



Papa was so nice and came to see us and bring us treats. He also hadn't really held Dawson yet because he was sick when Dawson was born. I love having a dad that is so good with babies and loves holding and cuddling his grandkids



After keeping him on the lights for 4 days straight, we went to the dr to get his blood drawn again and his level had dropped from
19 to 17. They told me the bilirubin would keep going down on its own and I could stop the lights. I stopped for a day or so and he was starting to look really yellow again. We got his levels done again and his level had gone up again. We played this game probably 5 times
Over the next 2-3 weeks.
On the lights, the level would drop. Off the lights and it would go back up again. It was so frustrating and to add to that frustration, we were about to get some bad news. Dr. Valentine called us on Wednesday and told us that we needed to go to the hospital to get Dawson's blood drawn again for his thyroid. He said the newborn screen came back positive for hypo thyroid ism but it's usually a false
Positive so just go get
It checked to be sure. A couple hours after his blood test, we got a call from Dr. Valentine and Dawson was diagnosed with congenital hypo thyroidism. I knew nothing about this disease but apparently it is very scary if left untreated. It causes delayed grown and can cause mental retardation. They think his thyroid issue is what was causing the jaundice because his liver was immature and not processing the bilirubin like it should. In our doctors 26 years of being a pediatrician, Dawson is the second patient to ever have this disease. He started him on medication right away and referred us to a pediatric endocrinologist. The next week was really hard on me and Jed as we had no idea what was in store for our sweet baby. Lots of tears were shed worrying about the life
Our baby would have. We finally
Met with the endocrinologist the next week and he let us know that we got Dawson on the
Medicine early enough that he shouldn't have any problems growing up. It isn't guaranteed but he should be fine.
He will probably have some ADD or ADHD but that is a much easier pill to swallow than worrying if your child's brain is going to develop. He answered all of our questions and told us Dawson would be on medication the rest of his life but as long as he stays on it, he should be just fine. I crush his pills up, put them in water and give them to him in a syringe. He takes them so easily and I am so grateful for that! Zoey was a nightmare with medicine when she was a baby so I am grateful Dawson is good at taking it since it's everyday for the rest of his life. We will get his blood drawn and see the dr every month for the next three years to monitor his levels and make sure everything is ok. It's stressful and has been hard but it's
Much easier now that we finally got the jaundice to go away.
Around 4weeks it just started going down on its own and I was so grateful! It was so hard
Going and getting Dawson's blood done at the hospital every day for weeks. My poor babies feet were all sliced up and his arms were poked so many times! So grateful to be on the other side and having a plan instead of the unknown

Dawson Jed Sainsbury

Our sweet little baby boy made his arrival on March 10, 2014 at 6:47 pm. 6 lbs 6 oz and 20 inches long . Long and skinny! I was surprised when they told me how small he was- I was expecting him to be over 8 lbs. they think his small size was due to his 2 vessel umbilical cord.

I was induced in the morning and sat all day waiting. I had an epidural right off so I didn't have any pain, just boredom! Jed was a good sport and sat with me all day. We decided not to have any visitors while in labor so it was nice to just relax and sleep or talk. We had an awesome nurse named Laura who took such good care of us and was super nice! My epidural was amazing too- it didn't hurt going in at all and I could still move my legs which was awesome! I sat at a 3 all day so Around 5:30 they turned my pitocin up and things really started going fast! I started feeling pressure so we called Dr Kaelberer who had said he was leaving for dinner (thank heavens he didn't actually leave!) and in two pushes he was here!
Dr Kaelberer told me he didn't have any hair when I was pushing him out, but he ended up having a bunch of strawberry blonde hair all over and especially in the back! I was so surprised because zoey had dark hair when she was born. It'll be interesting to see if he stays red or if he goes blonde or darker First picture as a family of 4
Grandma was the first one back to meet him

Zoey loves her baby brother so much!

Sara and Elisse came once we were moved to our room
I love this picture- daddy, zoey and baby
I was only at the the hospital for 24 hours after he was here. I hate being at the hospital (you don't get any sleep with them coming in every two hours) and I missed my family


Ready to go home! We had some issues in the hospital with dawson keeping his blood sugar up. He wouldn't nurse very well and he was too sleepy to take a bottle either. He had his circumcision that morning so that on top of the stress of being born he was really sleepy and didn't want to wake up to eat. We finally got two good blood sugars in a row(he had them drawn every 2 hours since the time he was born) so we got to go home!