I had my son James on 8/8/16 and the delivery was so smooth, he was out in ten minutes, before he was even out, he but the doctor, smiled at his big sister when he first saw her and latched like a champ when breastfeeding. We were discharged the next day and was told he had a "slight" case of jaundice. My car battery died and had to leave my car at the hospital and got a ride home with grandma. Went to our first pediatrician appointment a couple days later, my pediatrician was worried about the jaundice and tried to talk me into using formula (formula is a complete no go for me) and wanted his levels tested again, went to take him to quest and my insurance hadn't added him yet, go home, take care of that, and returned the next day to get his labs. His doc called me at 9:30pm that Friday night saying the levels were dangerous and I needed to get him retested and he may need phototherapy, she was going to try to get us back to quest, she called Saturday morning and told me to go to the ER because no quest would take him on a Saturday. Took him in, his levels went higher and they admitted him for phototherapy. It was the scariest thing to have my baby taken from my arms, put into an enclosed isolate, he's crying because he's hungry and scared and being poked, one nurse gave me hell because I only nursed and wasn't prepared with milk, a different nurse gave me some stuff to pump there and I immediately did to get him fed, hoping it would call him down, meanwhile I'm melting down, so scared and didn't know what to do. His father was out of town for work and I was all alone. I stayed there with him almost all night while the staff at nicu couldn't understand why I wouldn't leave, I was the only parent there and saw only two parents the entire time I stayed. 

The next morning, the doc told me that he may have another issue. His platelet count was dangerously low, and they wanted to retest him to confirm it wasn't an error. It came back confirming it was extremely low, and that we were going to be transferred to a different hospital with a hematologist on staff to help him, meanwhile he will need a platelet transfusion. He also said that they don't usually test for that and we were lucky they found it, or it could of been catastrophic. I had never been so terrified in my life. He has had 3 transfusions and it's still a mystery why his platelets drop. They have tested dad and I for an antibody issue but isn't likely given its out first pregnancy together. They tested James for genetic issues, infections, anything to solve this mystery, next will be testing his bone marrow. His jaundice is finally under control we think after being on and off lights. This has been the hardest thing I've ever gone through, I only had him home for three days, I want to bring him home. I feel like I'm losing my mind in this hospital and the docs aren't always on the same page of what they want for results and it's so frustrating. Other than his platelets he is completely healthy, smiley, fiesty, flirts with all the nurses and completely amazing. I know other moms have it worse than I do but this still is just so hard and so draining. Dad literally drags me out of the hospital at night to go home to sleep and I just go home and cry, feeling guilty I'm not here. 

Just got good news, a medication they gave is making his platelets come up, I'm really excited about that, hopefully they go up more and we can go home