The House of Urp

The good news is that Molly's trial by formula is over -- the bad news is that it really didn't agree with her. She was only on formula for about a day and a half, but she turned into the Queen of Urp and was spitting up a lot after every feed. Unfortunately, she didn't have much luck with the other end either -- she started blowing out diapers like crazy and now has a nice red rash on her hiney! We managed to amass an entire (large) load of Molly laundry in an amazingly short period of time. For the record, OxyClean Baby really does a bang-up job of removing baby stains (even old, set-in stains that have been sent through the dryer). I just throw all the stained items in a bucket full of hot water and OxyClean Baby, let it soak for a couple of hours, and then launder as usual (I usually wash baby clothes in Dreft).

Needless to say, I was very happy to start her back on mama's milk after she had her blood draw yesterday. She seems pretty pleased about it herself -- the spit up returned to its regular volume and consistency, her diaper output returned to normal, and poor red bottom is already getting better. To celebrate, Miss Molly deigned to latch on nicely tonight and set a new nursing record -- she nursed 118 mls this evening (a couple of mls shy of a full four ounces).

The blood draw itself wasn't much fun. Since they needed to run more tests this time, they put a needle in Molly's arm instead of poking her heel (poor baby!). It looked worse, but she actually minded it less. However, Mom's really sick of seeing her baby's get poked, so hopefully that's the last needle she'll have to see until her 2-month vaccinations.

The even better news is that the doctor called this morning with the lab results. Molly's bilirubin levels did go down quite a bit (from 12.5 to 9), so the doctor is pretty confident that she does have breastmilk jaundice and that it isn't anything to worry about. The day and a half of formula should disrupt the whole thing and her jaundice should start to diminish and should be gone entirely within the next few weeks. If she starts looking more yellow again, we'll have to bring her back to get checked out, but otherwise she's all set. They checked her iron levels as well (they ran a full workup on her) and her levels are actually pretty good for being preemie -- they're a little low, but nothing to worry about.

Molly is definitely threatening to take the weigh-gain title from her big brother -- she's packing on the ounces and weighed in at 7 lbs, 15.5 oz before tonight's bath. She has officially outgrown all her preemie clothes and is wearing newborn-sized items. I'm sure she'll be moving into the 0-3 clothes soon! Unfortunately, Molly seems to be following in Max's footsteps in another way as well -- she's losing her hair up on top! Gee, do they make baby Rogaine? ;) Molly definitely has an entirely different personality than Max -- she lets you know that she means business. If her food isn't ready when she wants it (and she goes from being sound asleep to starving hungry in about 60 seconds), she SCREAMS until she gets fed. Max never did that, so I keep thinking she's hurt or in pain.

I hope everyone has a nice holiday weekend -- we're just going to sit tight, cook some food, and feed some babies!