A second hospital stay

Our first week with Joel was quite an adventure. We were discharged from St. Vincent hospital on Saturday afternoon, two days after giving birth to Joel. He had lost 10% of his birth weight (which is on the high end), but we had the same thing happen to Luke. We went for Joel's check-up on Monday afternoon. He had lost even more weight and also had jaundice. So, Joel was admitted to the hospital. I also stayed in a room at the hospital, so I could feed Joel every three hours. Fortunately, everything worked out fine for Joel. The phototherapy brought his jaundice score down, as expected. However, the jaundice zapped Joel's energy, so he had little energy to eat from me. He ate what he could from me, I pumped, and then the nurse fed him the pumped milk with a bottle. Joel was discharged on Wednesday afternoon, so he and I could "come home" again. On Thursday, Joel had lost an ounce of weight, so we increased the amount of pumped milk we gave him each feeding. Finally, by Friday he gained over two ounces, so were were quite relieved that we had found the amount of milk Joel needs to grow. We had his pediatrician appointment the following Tuesday and he had gained nine ounces in four days (making us extremely happy and relieved). Now that Joel is two weeks old, he gets most of the meals from me now. I still pump when it seems like he has not eaten enough, but it sure beats pumping after every feeding. He is definitely making up for the first week; Joel loves to eat and he is packing on the ounces.