I just finished printing a bunch of photos to put up at work, I found some great ones!  Tracy definitely takes some good pictures.  Here are several good ones!

Just a few ‘steps’, but Gabriel is WAY more mobile than yesterday!  He would play by himself for awhile on the floor rolling around among his toys, now we have to keep a hawk’s eye on him to make sure he doesn’t go too far – here are some pictures:

With the new baby in the house, we’ve seen some regressions in behavior from Jaxton…  He’s asking for bottles again (Gabe gets them periodically to supplement nursing until he puts on some more weight), he seems to want to nurse more often and gets a bit jealous when Gabe is nursing, and he’s been throwing more fits & temper tantrums.  I’m sure these things are temporary, but we weren’t expecting/ready for them.

In addition, Jaxton has developed a sudden fever (which could be a cause for some of those ‘new’ behaviors), he was reading about 100 degrees Fahrenheit but doesn’t have any other symptoms of being sick (like runny nose, sneezing, coughing, etc).  It turns out that teething tablets & Tylenol helped him, so it must be teething again.  That was the combo of medicines that helped him initially – his canines have broken through barely, but are coming in more fully now.

It’s somewhat ironic that we bring home a baby from the hospital and in the first week, our toddler kept us up more at night than the newborn.  There were two nights where he was up for hours at a time whining and crying, not much we can do other than hope he gets through it quickly.

I just realized I didn’t post pictures from Gabriel’s final day in the hospital and first day home, so figured I would throw those in here!  Ty is doing great with Gabe and Jax is already getting used to him.  It’s great to see that both Ty and Jax are trying to help with the new baby in the house!

Leaving the hospital, Gabe had slightly elevated bilirubin level which means that he has Neonatal jaundice – apparently very common.  The treatment is called Phototherapy where we have to keep him in a suit with a mesh back on top of a light bed pretty much constantly.  It was really difficult for us to welcome Gabriel home but not hold him at all!  Here’s some pictures of the equipment/setup:

A nurse comes daily to poke Gabe in the foot and take blood for testing as that’s a more accurate measure for bilirubin than the skin test.  This morning when the nurse came, he didn’t even cry – it seems that getting stuck in the foot with something sharp isn’t something that a 6 day old should get used to!  Here’s a picture from the hospital

Great news is that we got the bilirubin level back today at 11.3, which was back to normal range!  We’re super happy to be done with the lights so we can actually hold Gabriel again.  He’s doing great now, sleeping, eating – doing all the right stuff!  He’s also still sleeping WAY more than Jaxton did, even when Jax was a year old.

Just an FYI, things are going good at home, it’s been so busy that I haven’t been able to post anything!  We’ve been fighting with neonatal jaundice and have had him on phototherapy since he’s been home.  Things are looking better today (latest blood test showed ‘14’ which was supposed to be close to normal).  We’re likely out of the woods, will add more pictures of the equipment we’re using and how the kids are responding to Gabe soon!

Gabriel is still nursing regularly and has only lost a bit of weight in the hospital (completely normal).  Earlier today he weighed 10 lbs 10 oz – the nurse said that it’s very common for bigger babies to lose up to 10% of their weight (for Gabe, that would be ~17oz and so far he’s only lost 8oz.  So, overall everything is looking positive for us to leave the hospital tomorrow!

Jax has mostly ignored Gabe so far.  We tried to bring him close, but the hospital has so many cool looking things to pull on, rip apart, or play with, so he’s been mostly too distracted.  The second time we brought him he at least looked over a bit more (less of the cold shoulder), so seems like he’s starting to acclimate.  As soon as I’m able to take a picture of all three kids together, I’ll post it – in the meantime, here are a few recent pictures of Jaxton & Tyler.

So far, so good – Gabriel has been sleeping really well, almost too well.  We have to wake him to feed him and keep him a bit cold (less blankets) to keep him awake to feed.  We’re crossing our fingers that Gabriel will be more like Ty (our oldest) and sleep through the night as a baby, that would be an awesome change from Jaxton (so far, Jax has slept through the night twice since he’s been born).

Here’s a quick video of the beginning of Gabe’s first bath (done by the nurse).  Please ignore the odd pauses, I didn’t realize at the time that the camera pauses recording when I take a picture at the same time.  He only really cries if he’s cold, or getting sharp things jabbed into his feet – other than that, he’s a very quiet baby so far!

The nurses & doctors here have been keeping a close eye on both Tracy’s and Gabriel’s blood sugar since he was born.  Tracy’s blood sugar has been perfect without any insulin, same as when Jaxton was born she basically went back to normal after the pregnancy.  Gabe, though, has had very low blood sugars.

He started out with about a 40 which was borderline concerning and dropped to a 39 in the first day of his life.  I imagine it’s tough for a baby to get poked in the feet so they can get a few drops blood every few hours, but he seems to be taking it well (only cries for a few moments).  Great news is that his blood sugar has been hovering between 55-60 (they’re testing before & after nursing) which is the normal range!  They just tested the last one and said he’s good to go, unless he becomes symptomatic for low blood sugar (tremors, not feeding, etc) – so no more heel pokes!

It also means that Tracy & Gabe might be release tomorrow, since they’re both doing great now.