Fiona's cord stump fell off several weeks ago, just as it should have. Everything seemed normal.
Then began to notice that there was this extra little red blobby thing on the end of what should have been an extremely cute belly button. Of course, my first action was to google "belly button not healing right" and "weird blobby red belly button", and through that research, I deduced that it must be an umbilical granuloma. But since google didn't attend medical school, I thought I'd better bring Fiona in to see the pediatrician.
At her appointment last Monday, I just told them that the belly button didn't appear to be healing right. I did NOT mention my googling, because I didn't want to be THAT PATIENT. You know, the one that walks in but has already decided on a diagnosis and treatment? So anyways, the doc looks at it, tells me "Oh, that's a granuloma, I'll get you the number for the surgeon."
At this point, I should now be thinking- What??!!? Surgeon!?!?!? That means surgery!!!
Good thing I'd done that googling. I knew it wasn't a huge deal, and that it could be taken care of easily. So we call the surgeon, get an appointment. We went in last Friday to see him, and I really wouldn't even call what he did surgery. It was a treatment. He took a stick with silver nitrate on the tip and touched it to all the pink areas of the little extra blob of tissue that was hanging on the end of Fiona's belly button. He told us that the skin around it might turn a little grey or brownish-black, and that that was okay. Then he gave us a few of the silver nitrate sticks in case any of the pink tissue came back, and sent us on our merry way.
On Saturday morning, I saw that the little red blob (which turned into a little blackish-brown blob when he touched it with the silver nitrate stick) had fallen off and was sticking inside Fiona's onesie. I also noticed that the area around her belly button was a bit red, and that there was this area of skin that had kind of sloughed off and was now also all pink. It looked like a burn. But she didn't seem to be in any pain, and was in good spirits, so I assumed it was just part of the process of the whole thing healing up.
Sunday morning the area seemed to be a bit redder, but it still didn't really look infected or anything, and she wasn't super fussy or running a fever, so I figured we could wait it out till Monday and then call the doctor. Which is what I did this morning, called and told them what it looked like- they said to come in to the office so they could check it out. We did.
At the office, the pediatrician looked at it and said "Ooh. Let me get the other doctor and have her look at it."
And then the second doctor came in, and was just like "Yeah, I agree"
And then they both walked out of the room. Leaving me sitting there like "Ummm, hello? What?"
The first doctor came back in and told me that they wanted me to take Fiona to the hospital. She said to wait while she called the hospital to make sure they had a free bed. Which they didn't. And so she said I should go ahead and take Fiona in to the Emergency Room.
The doctor told me that her belly button looked infected, and that the red area looked like a 2nd degree burn. She said that they would probably hook Fiona up to an IV to give her antibiotics, and treat and dress the burn. She said we would probably be staying at least overnight, if not longer. She said not to worry, that Fiona would probably be fine, she just wanted to make sure that we got her in and taken care of before anything got really serious, like the infection getting into her bloodstream and traveling elsewhere in her body or anything like that. At this point I am totally playing it cool, like it doesn't phase me a bit to take my tiny little 6-week-old baby to the ER.Called Nate, he immediately left work to come meet me at the doctors office, and then we headed over to the hospital.
Once we got there and checked in and did all that nonsense, the doctor came in to check Fiona out.
Babygirl was grinning away the whole time we were waiting.
The first ER doctor came in, looked at it, said she didn't think it looked infected. She said she wanted the other doctor to take a look at it and see what she thought. ER doc number 2 comes in, she agrees with ER doc number one. She said it looked like the belly button was NOT infected, and the burn looked only superficial, just a 1st degree. She just wanted to call the pediatrician to talk to her and hear her concerns, make sure all the doctors were all on the same page.
Came back awhile later. Told us that they were going to clean up the burned areas, dress them with bacitracin, and send us home.
I guess they normally take extra precautions with the little little babies, which is why the pediatrician thought they would admit her. But they told me that she really looked fine. Plus, they had no free private rooms in pediatrics, and that meant that if they did admit us that we'd end up either on a bed in the hallway or sharing a room with some sick kid...neither option is exactly ideal for a newborn's immune system.
So, they sent us home with a prescription for bacitracin and instructions to bring her to the pediatrician in a few days to make sure everything is healing up alright.
What. a. night.
