Steffan Lees Green joined our family at 1:29am, Wed 11/23/2011. He was a little early at 37 1/2 weeks but still just as big as the other two boys weighing in at 7 lbs 2 oz and 18 in long.
Had my 38 week appt earlier that day to find out I had gone from being dilated from a 1 the previous week to being dilated to a 3. My water broke for both my other boys when dilated to a 3 and 4 so we were concerned with all the contractions that it would break and cause complications with the cord since the baby was turned wrong. My doctor didn't think I'd make it to my Dec 2nd induction date and told us if we needed to get to the hospital right away when I went into labor or the baby's life would be at risk. That night I went into labor. We showed up at the hospital after 6 or7 hours of consistent hard contractions and found I was dilated to a 6 with no time to turn the baby. Therefore they got me in right away for a c-section and one hour later, little Stefan was born.
It's been a week full of surprises... On top of breech delivery, Steffan had a little mishap at the hospital. After the first day of feeding him with no problems, the second day he seemed so incredibly tired that he couldn't stay awake to eat. Now if I hadn't had two children previously, I might just think this is normal. But I noticed he seemed a little more yellow in color than he should've been and mentioned to a nurse how tired he was and wondered if I should be concerned. "Oh no" she said. "He is just being a newborn."
The pediatrician on call also came in to check on us the 3rd day I was there. I said, "Should I be concerned with how yellow he is?" I kept asking because Tate had come home on the sun lamps for his billirubin levels for a week and Steffan looked similar. The doctor also told me 'no' and checked his papers again to make sure his levels were normal. He mentioned that he could test him again for me that day but didn't think it was needed. I didn't want my new little baby to get poked and tested more than was necessary, so I went along with it. He then made a weird observation and said out loud, "You only have to be concerned if they are really yellow on the bottom half of their bodies like Steffan's legs are." (ummmm, ok... then should i be concerned?) I just let it be since he said he'd be fine. We were supposed to go home the next day and they would be doing another test in the middle of the night anyway.
At 3:30am one of the nurses came and got Steffan for his billi test. I asked how long it would be to get results and she said it takes about an hour and since she had to check on me at 5am, she would tell me when she came back. At 5:30am she came back in for Steffan and was kind of frantic. She hurried and took him with a brief explanation telling me that he had to immediately go to the Level II Nursery because his billi test score was way too high and was now in critical levels. I was puzzled wondering why this was of no concern when everyone kept telling me that even though he was yellow his test levels were low and I shouldn't worry. I started bawling and was glad that Jeremy had stayed at the hospital that night. I woke him up and told him what happened. Both of us were really confused and stayed awake waiting for someone to come in and update us on the situation.
At 7:30am two nurses came in apologizing for the mix up. Ummmm... mix up? What mix up? The nurse that had taken Steffan into the Level II Nursery said she had done some research to see why his billi levels had gotten so high and realized that his chart everyone had been looking at was actually some other baby's chart. WHAT?! They showed me the chart and said that my chart said, "Baby BOY Green" and the one they were looking at said "Baby GIRL Green". And to make it worse, it was a baby that was born at a completely different hospital. I could tell that Jeremy was fuming mad and didn't say a word. They mentioned that the nurse that pulled the charts worked at other hospitals and that she pulled the wrong chart when she printed it out because they were right next to each other. And to add on to it... there were about 7 nurses and 3 doctors that looked at it and never noticed it was the wrong chart. Plus I had even mentioned it to 2 nurses and 1 doctor about how he was looking and acting strange.
We found out that his billi tests were at 21.6 and brain damage levels start at 25 points. I was very concerned with how they could guaranty that no damage had happened at this point. We made sure to speak to legal counsel to make sure that nothing had been missed. But to say the least, there's not a lot we can do unless signs of brain damage show up later on in life other than have it all documented.
To summarize... I stayed in the hospital for 3 more days while little Steffan was out on IV's, poked and tested through out the day and lost almost a whole pound while he was there. :( It was so stressful and I cried a lot at the hospital (because on top of it all, we are still preparing our big move to Australia during the craziness of the holiday season). The nurses gave me a gift basket and sent all sorts of managers, supervisors, etc over to talk to us and apologize. We spoke to Risk Management and refused to pay our Level II nursery bills which ended up being over $10,000. They took care of that for us, but our main concern is that little Steffan is ok.
*An update on him at 8 weeks old. He is growing soooo fast. He grew a pound and and inch each week for the first month. He weighs about 13 lbs now and is already fitting in 6-12 month clothes. He looks like Teagan and has the brightest, carrot red hair you've ever seen. Ha ha. He is such a little cutie! I need to find the cord to the camera so I can post pics of him now.
Ps. Steffan was originally spelled with one "f" as "Stefan"... but everyone in the hospital kept calling him "Steven" and it drove me nuts. So I added the second "f" at the last minute. And it's pronounced "Steff-en" not "Steff-ahn". :)
