A Week of Doctor Visits

This was a LONG week for our little man!! We spent a lot of time with strangers at doctors' offices, and he had a lot of painful experiences. But there were a few positives that came out of it... so there is some redemption!

Tuesday we went to the ENT office in Anniston. Our pediatrician wanted a formal hearing test to be done for Israel, so I decided to go alone (saving Will's work time for when we "really" needed him to come with us to the doctor). I was SO nervous to do this! We went at 2:30 after a rough morning of little napping, so I knew this could be an interesting experience. We had to sit in a waiting room with several other families with kids, including a little girl who kept getting in Israel's face. I was wearing Israel in a sling, so he was close to me, and I kept trying to shield him from the people in the room. One of the nurses finally called us back, and she was very friendly, but I was a bit upset because she kept touching Israel- stroking his hand, kissing his hand, trying to get him to smile. It was very awkward for me because I didn't know what to do. Clearly you all know that we are in a "cocooning" stage- and even Israel's grandmas haven't gotten to give him that much affection yet. I just didn't know how to tell her to back off without being rude. Any advice, mamas?

After our brief meeting with the nurse, we had to go to a back room where an audiologist had me hold down Israel while she inserted a probe in his ears to do the hearing test. This did NOT go over well and resulted in a lot of crying! Once we got him calm, the test was pretty fast, but we had to go back in the waiting room for a few minutes (more nosy people) and then to a private office to wait for a doctor. Israel was having a meltdown and I knew he was just so tired, so I went in the hall and told the doctors that if they wanted to do anything with him, it better be fast because he was about to fall asleep and I wasn't going to keep him up. They came in for about 2 seconds and said he was fine, had passed his hearing test and they didn't have any worries. I stayed in the room and rocked him to sleep, and he slept in his carseat the whole 20 minutes home! Woo hoo!

Wednesday we had to do labwork for Israel. This required getting 2 vials of blood from his poor arm and hand. Will went with us this time and I'm so glad he did, because we had to hold down Israel so that he wasn't moving at all- and his poor cry was unbearable for me! I'm so glad Will was there to support me AND Israel through that! Thankfully, that's all the bloodwork we have to do for those labs (they worried that we might need to go back and get 2 more vials of blood but we don't!).

Thursday we had three women come over to our house from a state program to assess Israel to see if he qualified for a program to help with his developmental milestones. Seeing that we haven't really branched out of our cocoon (and we've had a busy week already) I wasn't surprised that Israel was very stand-offish to these women. He clutched me tightly and kept his head on my shoulder while we talked. I had to set him down on the floor to show off his skills :) but he did really well and I think the women got an accurate viewing of his current stages of development.

Friday we had to go back to the pediatrician to re-do the PKU test that we did 2 weeks ago. This time I kept him in the Ergo since they got the blood from his foot, and although he still had a big fit, he was at least in my arms and we didn't have to hold him down.

So it was a very long week for our little guy! Lots of strangers, lots of blood and lots of probes and testing. Poor kid. I felt really bad that all of this had to happen back to back, but we couldn't help the timing because things were scheduled without our input and we didn't know that it would all be that way!

But let's focus on the POSITIVE things we've seen this week:
1. Israel fell asleep in his carseat! He's doing really well in a carseat in general, but the fact that he could sleep in it is a huge blessing.
2. He has started to sleep so much better. It may be the stress of the week, but he has slept much better at night and has been napping more consistently. I also credit this to a VERY WONDERFUL loaned baby swing from our friends the Parrises. THANK YOU for helping my boy sleep!
3. His bloodwork from Thursday came back normal!
4. Being out and about and having the women at our house Thursday showed us that Israel is hesitant to interact with others. He doesn't offer smiles to strangers and let me comfort him when he was scared by other people. These are great attachment signs- as babies SHOULD have "stranger anxiety" and we are not wanting our little man to need to charm adults as a defense mechanism.