Love and Light

How can one gal be so lucky to be completely in love with two amazing guys at the same time? My heart melts just thinking about it. This astounding experience has led Jeff and I have to fall in love with one another all over again (in a new, beautiful way). In the meantime, we've also both fallen in love with little Harper. We truly can't wait for all of our friends and family to meet him. Though the pictures are beyond adorable, nothing is better than the real thing (regardless of what Bono says).

Home phototherapy for his Jaundice is going well. His biliruben levels haven't gone down, but that is good because there were only about 15 or so hours of therapy between the two blood draws (if it wasn't working, the levels would have gone up in that amount of time). In fact, when the nurse came over to our house this morning, she pointed out that the color in his entire backside was normalizing. When compared to his front side, his back looked pink. Woohoo!! It still breaks my heart that we can't cuddle and hold him 24/7, but we know its for the best. Since I do all the feeding (which is going well), Jeff does the burping and diaper changes. We're enjoying every little iota of precious time when he is on our arms instead of the light table.

We'll continue with the bed treatment, though we have his first official pediatrician appointment tomorrow. Harper met three of the doctors from the pediatrician's practice during our hospital stay, and we like them all so far. I'll include a picture of him in his therapy table. It doesn't look so bad, so obviously it hurts mommy and daddy more than it hurts him. Yes, that is a pacifier near him. We don't want him to become a pacifier-addict, so we use it for "breakthrough" soothing then take it out soon after he's calmed down. We bought a pair just in case he'd need them, and we're glad we did. The "bilibed" is inside of our Mini Co-Sleeper (thanks, Mom... we can't wait for you to get here on Wednesday!) that nuzzles up right against the (my) side of our bed. It's so great to have him close by - I can't imagine it any other way.

S