This is some background to Mary Claire’s Small Miracles story. Claire did a good job of expressing how scary all this was.

When a baby is born, their stomach looks large because of their liver. At birth, the liver has to suddenly take on the duty of filtering the blood of a rapidly growing body, and sometimes it gets behind. This can lead to a jaundice condition as impurities (dead blood cells called biliruben) accumulate in the blood. The skin can take on the yellow tint of these impurities.

Putting the baby under ultraviolet lights can help break down these impurities and reverse the jaundice. This is what happened to Danny at birth. His condition was severe enough that the doctors were afraid he would have to have a blood transfusion. After a few days in the hospital, the lights worked, and the jaundice reversed.

Even more serious, though, was a kidney infection that developed at the same time. An immature valve allows urine to back up from his bladder to his kidney, leading to infection and a high fever. The infection was high enough that he was in danger of having it spread to his spinal cord. The doctors had to perform spinal taps to draw spinal fluid and make sure it was not infected. He also had to have antibiotics administered intravenously.

All of this was a nightmare for Kathy and me, although the Irish nurse encouraged us saying how lucky we were to have all of these treatments available in America. Ten babies in Ireland have to share one set of biliruben lights, and Danny had his own.

Danny recovered, but had to be on antibiotics for two years as a precaution against further kidney infection. At his two year check up, the doctors found his valves working fine and he was cured.

Mary Claire had low blood sugar levels at birth, but they quickly became normal. I did not realize she equated this condition with Danny’s. Now I know why she tries to eat so much sugar.

All of our babies were small miracles.