Should we stay or should we go?

Our poor baby had jaundice the entire first week of her life and we had quite a rough time on our daily outings to her pediatrician. The morning we left the hospital, her heel was pricked and her bilirubin levels checked for jaundice. The nurse showed us on a graph that Anna's levels were a little higher than normal and that we would  need to visit her pediatrician the following morning to have her blood tested again. We must have started getting ready for her 2:45 pm appointment around noon. I had to feed her, change her diaper, get the car ready, diaper bag ready, etc...who knew it would take so long just to drive 15 minutes to the doctor's office. Little did we know this would be our schedule for the next 4 straight days. I had not been present the two times in the hospital her heel was pricked, but the first day Keith and I were by her side as the nurse pricked her little heel and proceeded to squeeze blood out of her tiny foot, drop by drop, until an entire tube was full. It was pure torture for me to watch my baby cry with actual tears streaming down her face. I'm pretty sure I cried as much as Anna did! We got a call later that night that her jaundice levels had continued to rise and that we would  need to visit the doctor's office yet again the following day to have her blood drawn again. We repeated this process until Friday which ended up being SIX straight days our baby had her blood drawn. I cried three times and the worst visit was the last day we went to the doctor. We hadn't had very good luck with the nursing staff at this office so we knew is was a crap shoot each time we went in if the nurse that was assigned to us knew what she was doing. Unfortunately for us, on Friday, this nurse had NO clue what she was doing. She ended up doing two of the blood tests incorrectly (this took probably 15 minutes and Anna was screaming the entire time) and since there wasn't any blood left to squeeze out of Anna's heel, the nurse had to call another nurse into the room and they pricked her other heel and re-did both tests. I thought Keith was going to yell at them and I was no help as I was crying and had to step away from the table because I couldn't bear to see Anna so upset. It was just awful. Couldn't the nurses see that in Anna's files that this was her umpteenth visit in one week and they needed to assign a competent nurse to us?! Keith and I were beyond frustrated...We left the doctor pretty upset but thankfully we received good news that night that her jaundice levels had gone considerably down and we didn't need to return until the following Friday for her two week check-up.

One of the main reasons her jaundice levels dropped was because after our visit on Wednesday, the doctor was worried her levels were too high that they called Cooks Children's Hospital in Fort Worth and had them deliver a home photo therapy machine for us to use on Anna. We only had to have it attached to her body for 48 hours but of those 48 hours, she was only allowed to have it off of her skin when she was getting her diaper changed. It made holding her and feeding her challenging, especially in the middle of the night! The machine looked like something out of a Star Wars movie but we are so thankful the machine did its job...now we just await the bill!

You can see the phototheraphy machine sitting on the coffee table. It has a hose attached to the back of the cord that had a thin wand attached to the hose that emits the artificial light onto Anna's skin.

Anna does kind of look orange in this photo!

Anna slept through it all and didn't really notice the wand on her skin at all times. 

Here you can see the hose (tail as we called it) coming out of her swaddle blankets. 

Aunt Hattie giving Anna some love. :)

If you look closely, you can see Anna tucked away in her pack and play attached to her machine. Poor thing!

Anna and I taking a nap while my mom and Keith watched a movie. I am known for falling asleep watching movies, but I'm happy that I have a companion to nap with me now so I don't feel as bad!

Now, let's get to her two week check-up...all went perfectly fine with Anna's check-up (she was gaining weight very well, etc.) until the doctor told Keith that he needed a TDap shot (combination of tuberculous and whooping cough) and offered to administer it to him at the office. We thought it was a great idea and could get it out of the way without having to go to our family physician or Walgreens, etc. to have Keith get the shot. As we were checking out, the nurse said, "ok, that will be $85" and we found out they would not take Keith's insurance since they only took children's insurance. We were stuck with the charge but it would have been nice to know we were going to have to pay that up front. Then the nurse fumbled with the computer and couldn't figure out how to make Anna's month check-up appointment so just handed us a business card and told us to call a number and make the appointment that way. Frustrating...

So, all in all, it was an easy decision to leave or original pediatrician's office and transfer to a smaller practice with only 3 doctors and 3 nurses versus the baby factory Anna was a part of at first. It was tough having to tell the old office why we were leaving but after talking and explaining our story to 2 different employees over the phone, they were apologetic and quite shocked at everything. Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to say that we are SOOOO happy now with Anna's new doctor!!