Rosebud

When we knew we were expecting this gorgeous little lady, Joybug was always certain that our baby would be a girl and desperately wanted to call her Rose. Thus we have given her the nickname Rosebud for the blog.

Rosebud is now seven weeks old. It's been a long seven weeks for Rosebud and Mama. On the day we were to be released from hospital, Rosebud was found to have high levels of jaundice requiring days under UV lights. I was allowed to stay in the hospital longer whilst we waited for the treatment to work. When we were released a few days later we were told to come back in for follow up tests in two days. By then Rosebud's jaundice levels had increased significantly and she was continuing to lose weight. She was required to be readmitted, placed under lights and have her feeds via a nasal gastric tube.

Rosebud was losing weight because she was tiring out quickly as she fed with her tongue tie, the jaundice would then increase and make her more tired, which made it harder for her to feed...and down the cycle went. We discovered that she had a blood incompatibility issue which was causing the jaundice, so it was not your average run of the mill "new baby" jaundice. Left untreated it could cause brain damage and even death.

To get out of hospital they require baby to be on all suck feeds, so we gave up attempting breast feeding and moved straight onto a bottle. We bottle fed Rosebud for three weeks solid with little to no attempts at the breast as we endeavoured to help her gain back her weight, strength and health. There are many benefits to bottle feeding, with everyone being able to have a go at it, and most importantly Christian being able to wake up for morning feeds and allow me to sleep in and get some rest. At four weeks we started to attempt breastfeeding. Finally last week we attempted breastfeeding only, with no bottles. We managed to do this successfully in what has turned out to be a super busy week, with Christmas services and a three day Christmas catch up with my family.

We are all thoroughly delighted with Rosebud and her smiles and now gurgles.