Small World

Yesterday afternoon I ran into Mandy in the third floor restroom (my office is on that floor). Mandy was one of Nadia's NICU nurses in 2008 and Ian's in 2009. I recognized her in December but at first didn't remember anything about her whereas she remembered soo much about myself, Paul, and my mom. This amazed me as during those 17 months in between seeing me she had sooo many other patients! I eventually did remember two things about her - where she went to college (Liberty in VA) and the fact that she lived an hour from the hospital. Whew... then I didn't feel AS bad when she confirmed I was correct. Well in December I learned that she has been working to become a Nurse Practitioner at the university where I teach. On my hall there are 10 offices - 6 of those are for nursing professors and 4 are for elementary education professors. I had mentioned to one of them earlier this semester that I knew Mandy, and Noreen (nursing prof) told me what a great student she was. I am not surprised. Mandy is really, really nice and also seems really, really smart. Last year she and her husband adopted one of the babies she took care of in the NICU. Sadly their daughter died a few days before she was scheduled to be discharged from the NICU. Anyhow it was neat to run into her yesterday. She of course asked me how Nadia and Ian are doing. She is working part-time in the NICU while working on this degree. She told me that she needs that time to be able to "love the babies." Yes, the NICU babies do receive excellent care from Mandy.

Yesterday I got a letter in the mail regarding the complaint I made last Monday to the hospital. I am guessing it's the standard letter than the patient advocacy office sends out whenever a complaint is made. I have to admit in my situation the letter was irritating. It said (more than one time) "we're sorry that we did not meet your expectations." Huh?!? Does anyone have a c-section and NOT expect the entire placenta to be removed? I don't think the problem has anything to do with me having unreasonable expectations. This is only the 2nd time I've made any sort of complaint against a doctor. The first time was when Paul passed out while driving and his PCP wouldn't give any referrals for any testing. When I let the insurance company know this (out of fear for Paul and also anyone else on the road that he might injure/kill if he had another accident due to passing out), they immediately had the PCP give him a referral to a neurologist and cardiologist. So it's not like I am one to quickly file a complaint - 2 in the past 20 years since I graduated from college. She has opened an investigation and said she'll get back to me within 30 days. Hopefully in the end they will acknowledge that the quality of care I received was not satisfactory - and it has nothing to do with my personal expectations.

Ian had a better night last night. He fell asleep with Paul at 7:20, and I wasn't sure what to do at 8:00 when I got home. I finally decided not to wake him up and just go to bed, but then he woke up at 8:10. He didn't nurse very well though. I had a hard time keeping him awake. I finally put him back down at 8:45 and was worried he wouldn't sleep very long. Thankfully I was wrong as he didn't wake up until 1:55. I had a bunch of clogged ducts due to this (I had pumped at 4:40 at school). I got him back down at 3:10, and he slept until 5:00am. Good job, Ian!! I had a very hard time going back to sleep at 3:15. I hate it when that happens. I am so tired, but it's hard to fall asleep quickly every time. I usually have been putting him to bed betwee 8-9pm, but maybe he'd do better with an earlier bedtime? I'm going to try it tonight. If you count that first 50 minutes with Paul then he slept almost 8 hours total which is more than he usually gets at night.

Here's to hoping that today Nadia will take a 3 hour afternoon nap, and Ian will take at least one decent nap (longer than 20 minutes) in the Nap Nanny. Paul put together Nadia's PlasmaCar last night while the rest of us were sleeping. I hope she loves it! If Ian doesn't start taking naps, I will likely have to let him cry. If so I hope the weather is nicer so I can take Nadia out (with the monitor) so she doesn't have to listen to him crying. A couple of you mentioned Babywise. I did read the book when Nadia was 2 months old. Ironically I thought she was difficult in terms of sleeping, and I still wouldn't say she was easy with sleeping (until 6 months old) but she was easier than Ian. I thought for sure the second child would be easier. Wrong! I tried letting her CIO at that stage, but it didn't seem to work for her. I tried it again when she was a bit older (I'm thinking 4 months but I'd have to check) and then it worked in terms of teaching her to self-soothe. I have tried with Ian from the start to follow the Babywise principle of establishing the pattern of eat, play, sleep during the day and eat then sleep at night. I try to keep the room dark and not make eye contact or talk to him etc when nursing him at night to try to make the transition as smooth as possible back to bed. During the day I try to keep him up as sometimes he does fall back asleep right away while nursing. I try to get him back down after he's been up (including nursing time) for 2 hours. I usually nurse him a little as a means of getting him sleepy. I can easily get him to fall asleep on the boppy (using my body as a pacifier), but many times he wakes up after being in the Nap Nanny 5 minutes even if I have him swaddled (or in his snowsuit) like I do at night. In the past the pacifier would help, but it hasn't helped lately. He's turned into following a pattern of eat, play, eat, play, eat, play, etc. with VERY little sleep aside from what he gets between 9pm and 6am. I also used to read a Babywise blog every day. I stopped following it about a year ago, but it's a great blog if you are trying to go by that book series. I looked at it last night for the first time in many months, and it looks like she's expanded and improved it in several ways such as giveaways and such. The book I have on sleeping is by a pediatrician in Chicago (Weissbluth). He does say to let a baby cry up to one hour when you are trying to get him/her to take a nap and that you can let them cry even longer than that at night. I really wasn't wanting to do CIO this young with Ian especially since he came 6 weeks early and has struggled to gain weight, but I might be doing so if he doesn't start taking at least one nap a day somewhere besides my arms. For my sake and more importantly Nadia's sake, I can't keep holding him 16 hours a day. As strange as it may sound, he does lie very happily on the changing pad on the kitchen table while I am feeding Nadia. I am sitting right there within reach of him, and he can't roll over yet so it's safe for now, but once he starts rolling that won't be safe. At least this means he doesn't scream while Nadia eats her meals.