Ryan had his 4 month doctor’s appointment today, for all of you that don’t know, with a baby you have doctor’s appointments every 2 months for…. Well I don’t know how long but until baby starts slowing down with the whole development/growth thing. I actually don’t mind going that much, it is nice to get official progress reports- today was the exception; we had the doctors appointment from hell.
So Ryan and I arrive at the appointment about 5 minutes early, Don arrives shortly after; we take our seats after signing in. All seems well right? Well, an hour later we are still sitting there. Ryan has had a total melt down and was now sleeping in my painfully asleep arms. Apparently our doctor was running an hour late, which they decide to tell us after we have been sitting there for 50 minutes. Ryan has gone right through his scheduled nap time, thus the melt down. (Ryan has a schedule- we made our appointment around his schedule- they called and moved it to a less convenient time because… someone wanted a longer appointment so obviously we get kicked... bad form).
So FINALLY we get shown into the office where we get Ryan all ready, he gets weighed and measured, and then the nurse leaves and we are yet again waiting. This time Ryan is in just his diaper in the cold room, and we end up waiting about 25 minutes for the doctor to come in, by which time Ryan is utterly miserable…. We have been there 2 hours, Ryan is quickly approaching his feeding time, I being stupid thought we would be home by now and so I have brought no food. She checks him out; everything seems fine (I will give more details in a less ranting post). We establish which shots we are getting this appointment- in other words she tells me something wrong and I correct her (Dtap and Hib only for this appointment). Don had to take a work related phone call and had to go outside- he too stupidly thought we would be done within 2 hours of appointment time.
After the doctor leaves, another nurse walks in and says “so Ryan is getting his Polio shot”…. Uh no! Read a chart much? I tell her that we are not getting Polio this appointment, she looks at the shots in her hand (2 of them) and goes “huh…?” sets the shots down next to Ryan and says, “these are right”… I am freaking out, she wants to give my son shots and she doesn’t even know what they are. I ask her “are you sure you know what those are” and she goes “maybe I will go ask someone”…. OH MY GOD, REALLY???? While she was gone I looked at the shots and they were in fact correct, it was easy to look at them considering she left them WITHIN REACH OF RYAN.
Needless to say it didn’t go well, Ryan made it home and ate like he had never been fed before and took a much needed nap (2 hours late). I have really liked my pediatrician before this appointment. I have learned that in the future I will call ahead of time to see if the doctor is running on schedule, I will only schedule appointments with doctors I really want to see and most of all I will know exactly what is supposed to be given/ done at any given appointment because I cannot be guaranteed that anyone else knows or cares what is supposed to be done. Rant over… on with our normally scheduled programming.
When Don and I were buying baby stuff I insisted on the best baby monitor. We got the one that has a motion detector on it; piece of mind is wonderful thing. So there is this little board that goes under the mattress and detects Ryan breathing. When it doesn’t detect breathing in a few seconds it beeps once as a warning (incase you have picked up the baby without turning off the monitor). Last night the dreaded beep sounded- I honestly don’t even remember getting out of bed or getting to his room, I was there in less then a second I am sure of. He had managed to scooch his whole body to the very corner of the crib with his head pressed against the bars and so had moved his whole body off the censor. I moved him over and he was fine. Now 20 minutes later I am wide awake. Yay for the censor working, boo for the misadventure tonight.
Don tells me almost everyday that he appreciates what I do. He does night duty, which means that while I get to sleep through the night he gets up at least once (sometimes 2x) to feed Ryan. He tells me I look beautiful when I brush my hair and put real clothes on, but more importantly he tells me I am beautiful when I am in sweatpants covered in rice cereal (he even seems to really believe it!). He is loving and calm when I am dramatic and miserable which can kick me out of the mood. He smiles when I walk into the room. So this is my shout out to Don and what a great husband and father he is. I am a much better mother and person because of it. 
