Our morning started early when Robbie decided he was most definitely WIDE AWAKE at 4:35 am. I'll admit that this made me a bit anxious about how the morning would go, since he couldn't nurse until a while after the MRI. I had been hoping that he would sleep later so he wouldn't be conciously hungry as long. He and Lee hung out downstairs and graciously let me sleep a little longer, and then we all got ready and headed out the door. First stop: our sweet friends' house so that Jocelyn could spend the morning playing with her friend Sutherland. (Thanks again, Dana! You rock!) Second stop: Starbuck's for my pumpkin chai latte. Third stop: the hospital.
And, oh yes, we were THAT family. The parents taking pictures of everything. (As you'll see by the plethora in this post!)
Here we are in the waiting room. Robbie has always been a thumb sucker, but I've never seen him suck his thumb as much as he did this morning. Poor guy had to settle for something in the absence of food!
And, you can't see in the picture above, but his sleeper outfit says "baby" across it. I chose that one since the nurse who called the day before to remind us of the procedure asked to speak to "Mr. Dingle" to confirm his appointment with him. I figured it might be helpful to have his chest emblazoned with "baby" in case they got confused about his age again. :)
However, that was short-lived because, as you see in the picture below, we switched outfits in the waiting room. Because, really, what says "baby" better than having it written across your chest? Oh, yeah, that's right ... having a diaper blowout. Robbie: 1, baby sleeper: 0.
Yep, there's that thumb again. And Momma's smiling because I wasn't sure if I'd get to snuggle with him much this morning. I was expecting him to cuddle more with Lee since I thought that cuddling with me could be hard for him while he was hungry. Thank God that was not the case! It seems that he decided that the next best thing to nursing from Mom would be cuddling with Mom. YAY!
Getting his blood pressure taken
Putting on his gown
Cuddling with Momma (and still sucking that thumb!)
"What? You wanna sedate me? Nah..."
"...I've been up since 4:35 am. I can pass out on my own."
"Eh. Nevermind. I'll wake up again for fun with Daddy!"
Even though Robbie was starving, Lee could still get him to laugh and smile some! True to typical Robbie-man temperament, even hunger didn't faze him much. All those prayers for him to handle it well were answered with a big YES! Thank God!
"What are you looking at? We're behaving ... kinda."
Crazy Robbie eyes after getting the first dose of sedatives
Sedative haven't kicked in yet ten minutes later...
Sedatives still not doing much, but we turned the lights down and listened to Celine Dion's CD of lullabies ... and investigated our feet! In the picture below (taken with flash ... you know, since that's helpful when you're trying to get the baby to sleep), you can't see what's so fascinating about the feet, but ...
...without flash, "hey, look, Mom, my toe is red!"
After the second dose of sedative, he's knocked out with sensors in his nose (to monitor breathing) and on his chest (to monitor his heart).
It was a big stretcher for such a little guy!
We had to leave our camera after that, since metal objects + MRI = not a good idea. But we were able to sit in the MRI room with Robbie and watch his vitals the entire time, which was nice. The MRI itself took about 45 minutes.
Robbie woke up almost immediately after he came out of the machine. One of the two requirements before we went home was that he be able to hold his head up well before we left. As you can see from this shot of us wheeling back into the exam room, he had that under control! However, he was not happy about any of it at that point. If he could talk, I'm pretty sure he would have said, "That's it! I'm DONE!"
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And that ends the pictures! I had to leave the room after that because the second requirement for us to go home was that Robert had to drink two ounces of juice or Pedialyte and keep it down for at least 30 minutes. It was about 10:30 at this point, and he hadn't had anything since I nursed him at 1am. Every time any of us tried to offer him the bottle, he cried and tried to get to me to nurse. Lee says that he readily accepted the bottle about 20 seconds after I left! I hung out in the waiting room for a bit and made some calls, and little man chugged 3-4 ounces. This was FANTASTIC because it meant that we could go back to nursing as soon as we got home. (The plan had been that he needed to take 1-2 ounces at the hospital and then another 1-2 ounces at home before he could nurse again.) Another blessing was that he had NO side effects other than the expected grogginess for the rest of the day. We were told to expect some stomach problems, and he had none. Praise God!
We should get the results by Monday, though we're praying that they'll be available sooner. Our pediatrician will discuss the results and next steps (if any) over the phone as soon as she has the MRI report, and we'll keep you updated. Thanks for your prayers, notes, emails, and calls. They have been such an encouragement right now!
