Sideshow Attraction

It was 1 am the morning of May 5, 2010. Mr. Bean was sleeping on the couch/bed in the room and I was breastfeeding Jelly Bean by the glow of the television with the reading lights on overhead. I glanced down at my child who was a mere 42 hours old when I noticed a weird shadow across her face. I moved her position but the shadow line did not move. I started to laugh because the line down her entire face was so odd that it struck me as funny. (Side note: It is interesting how as a second-time mom things don't freak you out like they would have if the same thing happened to your first baby.)

I kept staring at the line down Jelly Bean's face and finally decided I was either going crazy or something weird was happening with her body and either way I needed a second opinion. Mr. Bean hadn't moved despite my audible laughter, so I paged a nurse. She came in and said, "Oh my! That is weird. I have never seen a baby do that before." After some discussion and convincing her that I was not freaking out over the odd coloring, the nurse took a walk down to the nursery to talk to the newborn nurses to ask them if they needed to see Jelly Bean.

A couple of minutes later, the same nurse burst into the room and hurriedly took Jelly Bean to the nursery while yelling over her shoulder for us to join her as soon as we were able. Mr. Bean was stumbling to wake up from deep sleep, and I was just fresh from a Cesarean Section.

Upon arrival at the nursery, I was asked all sorts of questions about the weird coloration on Jelly Bean. By the time she had arrived in the nursery, her coloring was normal. They had her under the warming lights and stripped down to just her diaper. Another nurse was on the phone with the on-call doctor who insisted she be monitored for the duration of the night.

I returned to my room and consulted with Dr. Google. His diagnosis was that Jelly Bean had a rare condition called harlequin effect. It is a benign condition where the immature vessels over dilate when a baby is placed on her side. It can take several minutes or just a few seconds. Whichever side the baby is lying on turns red and the top side goes pale. A sharp line forms between the two from the forehead down the entire length of the body.

Several times throughout the night I was able to get Jelly Bean to change colors when I nursed her. The nurses insisted I let them know when she did it so they could chart the symptoms. Based on their reactions when I alerted them to the harlequin effect, I think they really wanted to know so they could call every nurse within yelling distance to check out the sideshow act going on in the nursery. Of the approximately 30 nurses on staff in the Maternity ward of the hospital, only one had ever seen this before.

For your viewing pleasure, we took a photo for you to see and enjoy this sideshow attraction for yourselves. Please excuse Jelly Bean's jaundice which seems severe next to my pale skin which apparently has not seen the sun in several years.

Photo taken May 5, 2010 in the wee hours of the morning in the nursery of the hospital where Jelly Bean was delivered. Jelly Bean is a few hours shy of two days old.
Photo by Mr. Bean

I am told it takes up to 3 weeks for the harlequin effect to disappear when the newborn's system matures. Jelly Bean is 2 weeks old today and we have not seen her "go harlequin" on us in a few days, so she has apparently grown out of it!

Growing Up!

Now that Cashew has turned 2, she no longer is in the church nursery with String Bean. When I went to pick up String Bean this morning, she was fast asleep in one of the nursery worker's arms. The worker said, "She was the only one over here this morning and I guess it got boring!" There are a few other kids who should be in the nursery with String Bean, but they were absent this morning. Come mid-June, they will have all graduated to the 2s class and String Bean and her friend Jenna will be all alone until they get to graduate in November.

Our little babies are growing up. Before we know it, we'll be shelling out all our life savings to send them off to college. Stanford, Yale or Harvard of course.

Young Families Ministries

We had a meeting today with a couple of Elders from our church. They were soliciting our ideas for a young families ministries at our church. We did not have a whole lot to suggest. We were asked several things from what ministry ideas we had, to how does our current facility look to the parents of a young child. We were impressed with the questions that were asked, but we still felt at a loss as to what to tell the Elders about fixing the problem.

We suggested hiring a dedicated person to do young families and young adults ministry--someone with a real passion for it. We suggested upgrading the nursery facilities to make a better place for sleeping infants (somewhat sound-proof which it is not now) and breastfeeding moms, we suggested having the sermon pumped into the nursery so nursing moms and moms with crying babies could listen to the sermon, and we suggested that childcare be made available for ALL church functions. We also mentioned that we can't forget about single people at the church. After all, single people become the new young families at church! Paul said it was better to remain single to focus on God's work and we can't as the Church exclude singles from the life of the church; rather, we should be listening to and learning from them with their unique, God-given perspective on things.

I am wondering what things your church does for young families or young adults ministry?