I have now survived two pediatric doctor appointments with Nelson, and, quite frankly, I never expected so much drama. Never a dull moment with my son, let me tell you what.
The first doctor appointment was when Nelson was 3 days old. It was just a little check up in which the doctor was going to check Nelson's circumcision--nothing too fancy.
When it started getting close to the appointment time, Andrew asked if we wanted to take Nelson in his stroller. Since the clinic wasn't too far from our apartment, I said I didn't mind. After we got Nelson all packed up in the stroller, Andrew realized the wheels needed a little air. So he ran to find his bike pump. Time was ticking, and I think we were all getting antsy about being late. Then, the right pump nozzle for the stroller tires wouldn't attach properly to the pump. Andrew told my mom and me to start walking, and he would catch up with the stroller (and Nelson, of course) after he got the pump working.
My mom took this epic picture of us trying to get the stroller ready.
When Andrew did catch up with us, I realized I'd left Nelson's diaper bag back in the apartment (oops). Andrew gave the stroller to me, and he literally ran back to the apartment to grab the bag.
My mom and I arrived with Nelson at the clinic only to find out that what we thought was the right building was actually a women's clinic of the same name, and the pediatric clinic was on the other side of town. We were already 5 minutes late as it was, so my mom asked the receptionist to call the pediatric clinic to tell them we were on our way.
All I could think about was the fact that poor Andrew was probably going to run into the clinic any second with diaper bag in tow, and I was going to have to tell him to run back to the apartment again to grab the car. Luckily, Andrew had a sixth sense about the whole situation and drove himself to the clinic.
We all scrambled to get ourselves and the stroller in the car, and we were on our way to the right clinic. The receptionist had told us an approximate location of where the pediatric clinic was, so it took us a little while to find it. I was pretty overwhelmed by this point, so the darned clinic building may as well have been the Labyrinth. Andrew had to practically push me in the right direction because I had gone into a little lost puppy mode.
Us just happy to have found the right office and to be sitting in its lobby.
We FINALLY got to the office, and it did not help my nerves at all to find that it was getting remodeled. There was loud hammering and drilling the whole time we were sitting in the lobby. After waiting for more than a half hour (I guess I really didn't have to worry about being late after all), we got called back to an exam room.
A nice nurse asked me to strip Nelson down to just a diaper so she could get his length and weight. As I started taking off his little outfit, the nurse started asking me all sorts of questions about Nelson's eating habits and bowel movements. I got really mad at myself because I had stalwartly created and filled out a table with all this information, and I had (surprise, surprise) left it in the apartment. With the help of my mom and Andrew, we managed to answer all the nurse's questions to the best of our ability. There was a little discrepancy on what we thought the color of Nelson’s bowel movements had been (who knew the color of poo could be so important?), so I opened Nelson’s diaper because I knew he had pooped in it. The nurse started to say that this particular bowel movement was the perfect color.
And that’s when Nelson decided to pee across the exam room.
I didn’t know a baby could get that much height and distance when peeing. It was actually quite incredible. But at the time it was just plain embarrassing. All I could do was stand frozen and stare at that stream of pee coming from my son. It wasn’t until he was almost done that I realized I could just close the diaper again. This just wasn’t my day. I really tried not to, but I suddenly burst into tears right in the middle of the exam. The poor nurse didn’t exactly know what to say or do, so she sweetly told me I could pick up my baby to take him to get weighed (after he got a nice clean diaper on, of course).
The rest of the exam went just fine. The doctor was really nice once he came in to the exam room. A funny part of the exam was when the doctor was unwrapping the gauze from Nelson’s circumcision. As the doctor unwrapped, he jokingly said, “It’s just like unwrapping a little Christmas present.” He then looked at Andrew and said in mock seriousness, “I mean a BIG Christmas present.” We all got a good laugh out of that one. By the time we got home, I realized the whole experience really had been rather humorous (mostly). Oh, and here are Nelson’s stats from that appointment:
Weight: 7 pounds 7 ounces
Height: 21 inches
The nice doctor examining Nelson. That blurry thing is my arm.
I can't exactly remember what I was doing...
As for the second doctor appointment (Nelson’s two week appointment), we went with Andrew’s mom. We were on time, and I even remembered the diaper bag. The only thing that went wrong was the fact that Nelson decided he was absolutely famished right as we were pulling out of our apartment complex parking lot to go to the appointment. You would think I NEVER feed him EVER. He cried and fussed and cried and fussed and cried and fussed basically the whole time we were in the clinic. We had brought a bottle, but it wasn’t enough. The poor little guy just didn’t understand what was going on!
Even with all the drama, it was fun to get Nelson’s updated stats:
Weight: 8 pounds 8 ounces
Height: 21.5 inches
The doctor told us Nelson is doing just fine considering he had already gained a whole pound. He also said Nelson’s skin coloring looked great, and Nelson has good muscle tone. All good things for a nervous new mommy to hear. :)
So all is well with little Nelson. And all is well with the nervous new mommy… even if I did gain a few gray hairs from these doctor’s visits. The next appointment is his two month appointment. I think I should start preparing mentally now… and make sure Nelson gets a good and proper feeding before we even think of leaving the apartment. :)
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