Our story begins on June 5, 2012 when Areli was welcomed by countless friends and family, who adored her even before we set eyes on her.
It was a relatively normal (easy) delivery at 39 weeks and she came out strong and healthy and screaming her pink little buns off! She was absolutely perfect and beautiful and her whole family fell in love with her.
The nurses and doctors did their routine baby check-ups and she was perfect except for a little bit of jaundice, but we were allowed to go home with the instructions to put her naked in the sunlight to rid of the jaundice (no big deal her sister had the same and after a few days it cleared up). So we packed up our new little bundle of joy and set home as a new family of four.
Big sister Leilani holding Areli for the first time at home.
We did as the doctors instructed and put Areli in the sunlight day..
After day...
Note the yellow tint in her skin.
After day...
Despite efforts to keep her in the sun, she would look more and more yellow everyday. It would almost look as if she had a really bad fake tan.
We followed up with her pediatrician the day after she was born and her jaundice levels had increased. We did more blood work at 3 days old and her levels increased again. We did more blood work at 7 days old and the levels had increased "at a more rapid pace than expected" and the ped. said if by the next appointment her levels were up more we would need an intervention. Imagine my worry. So at 14 days old we head over to do more blood work and her levels had "plateaued and should go down from here", so no treatment for us! Imagine my relief!
The doctor sent us home with more instructions to continue the sunlight and if her yellow seemed to be worse or if the whites of her eyes became very yellow or if she was hard to wake, overly tired or acting out of character to call or else we would just see her at her next scheduled appointment of one month.
So we went about our lives keeping a watchful eye on our baby.
Thank you for reading about Areli, please share so we can get our story out to help find answers.
Love Mama Linnea
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