The Colour Yellow

I love the colour yellow. I think it's bright, cheery and punchy. Golden yellow exudes warmth and strength. I use yellow alot when I design logos or graphics. I work for a non-profit organisation called Young Leaders Foundation and our logo is yellow too. Strong and vibrant. Even Brazil, the world's best soccer nation wears yellow. I love the colour yellow EXCEPT when it's the colour of my daughter.

Yes, Maegan's turning yellow and no, she is not taking over B1 and B2 (they are "Banana in Pyjamas"just in case you are wondering) when they retired. She's just suffering from jaundice. Has been since she left the hospital 11 days ago.

Jaundice it seems is very common among new borns. Particularly with Asians. Almost every baby that I know have jaundice. The mild ones go away a few days after they go home. The more serious ones have to be admitted into the hospital to undergo UV light therapy.

Daphne and I didn't think it was a major deal since it's known that jaundice takes a longer while to recover if you are completely breastfeeding. But today, she seems a little too yellow for our liking. Even when my cousins came to visit, with all their kids in tow, they too commented that it's too yellow.

Ever wonder how panic and worry sets in without anyone doing anything to you apart from saying something that hits you like a brick? Well, that sort of happen to us. I called a good paeditrician friend of mine to get a professional opinion. A short visit to him at the hospital wouldn't hurt was the summary of our conversation.

So to the National University Hospital we went in seek of a word of assurance that everything is fine. It's funny how people seem to pay lots of money just to hear that they are fine. Us included. When Maegan was 2 day old, we paid $70 for a hearing screening test just so that they nurses can come back and tell us she is hearing properly. "But I already knew that" was what I screamed to myself.

Today was one of the "just-to-be-sure" test days except that my friend needed to draw blood from Maegan. He looked me in the eye and warned me that Maegan would really cry. And cry she did.

I actually think it hurts me and Daphne more than it hurts her but Maegan may think otherwise given that her little hand, which is no bigger than the size of a golf ball, has a huge plaster over it. It's painful to see your child going through pain. The images of her blood being drawn was hard to imagine and when I finally carried her out of the room, Daphne stood there, almost in tears.

We both know that there are going to be many, bigger heartaches that we will experience as parents with Maegan but the drawing of her blood sure started us on this journey in a painful way.

Results that came back shows a higher than acceptable level but given her age, it is not a case for concern unless the levels increase. She's okay to go home and with clear instructions that sun-tanning will be a logical thing to do. Works as well as the UV light therapy but at zero cost.

So it seems that Maegan will remain yellow for a few more weeks. I'm confident that all will be well. The jaundice like many babies before will come down over time. What will stay with me would be the fact that the pain a father feels when his child is hurt is somewhat uncontrollable.

There's a scene in a somewhat terrible move that I love. "Just Married" is about a couple who decided to get married after meeting each other for only a matter of days and started their marriage life with a disasterous honeymoon. In a nutshell, they came back seeking divorce. In this scene that I love (I hated the rest of the movie), the guy met his dad and lamented to him about what has happened. His dad said to him "marriage is not only about the happy pictures we take, it is also about the difficult times we have to go thru in between those happy photos."

I love that scene. I love that line and the way he said it. Being dad seems to me a similar analogy.

Maegan, in her 15 days of existence, has about 380 photos on my computer. Most of it happy faces of grandma, grandpa, uncles, aunties and friends holding her and posing with her. Many are beautiful picture of her smiling, sleeping and occasional crying. Even those are sweet on it's own.

But parenting isn't about just the happy moments. It's about the waking in the night, worrying about the constipation and relentless existence of jaundice in Maegan. It is about the moments that I cannot capture on camera and about the pain I felt when the needle went into her.

What a journey. And the best part of it all, it's been only two weeks. I know I've got a whole lot more coming. So bring it on!