The Life of Stephen

After an overnight stay in the the hospital of one night and almost a day under the blue lights to treat Stephen’s jaundice, we were able to take him home. It was such a weird feeling to be able to finally go after so much had happened in a short time. Everything felt like it went so quickly and the part at the hospital is the part the gets the most focus – we found ourselves arriving home and going “now what?”. We got him in the car and he pretty much slept all the way home – on the right there is how he looked. We’ve already been told he looked like and old man .

So what do they do when your newborn has jaundice? They put them under bilirubin lights to help clear it out of their system. Stephen was a little yellow which is normal especially in premature babies so he had to spend some time under the lights.

I’d never heard of these, so it was a little bit of a shock to see your newly born baby under lights that I can only describe as looking like a tanning bed for kids. It looks more serious than it is, and very common from what I was told, which calmed me down. But at least the kid had good tunes to listen to as you can see in the picture. Luckily he was only in there for a little less than a day as his jaundice was leaving his system. Hopefully we get to go home tomorrow.

On April 18, 2008 at 11:45 am Stephen Leslie Barkema make his way into the world.

He arrived three weeks early (still trying to figure out where he gets the early bit from) weighing in at 5 lbs 12 oz. and 19 inches long. Mom was in labor for roughly 12 hours – not too bad for the first go around. We are both happy that we have a healthy baby.

Upon arriving home from 2 hours of indoor soccer I was told those words – “I think my water broke”. A quick call to the doctor, and an even quicker shower by me and it was off for the half-hour drive to the hospital we were checked in and actually got in a decent nights sleep all things considering.