Well that was an adventure

Well we visited the doctor on Wednesday for Nicholas' 6 month appointment.  I was thinking that it would be a pretty straight forward, quick appointment.  We didn't have a ton to discuss with the doc, just the usual 6 month baby stuff.  You know, how is he doing, can he roll over, what sounds is he making, can he sit up on his own...the basics.  I knew he would be getting his next round of immunizations and that that would make it a little rough, but I was not at all prepared for the adventure we were about to embark on.  NOT AT ALL!!

I woke up to fog.  A lot of fog.

Knowing that this fog was pretty thick and that it would inevitably slow down traffic, I got Nicholas ready early so that we would have a little bit of extra time to get there.

Apparently we should have left even earlier.  We had a little less than 3 miles to travel to reach the office and it took us a little over an hour.  Naturally, my squirmy, wiggly little boy who loves moving around and rolling back and forth was not the slightest bit amused by the fact that he was strapped into a car seat for this length of time.  At the 30 minute mark the screaming began and being trapped in between lanes of cars that were slowing inching forward, there wasn't much I could do.

By the time we reached the office, my head felt like it was going to explode.  Oh, but the fun was just beginning.  We walk into the office to find that apparently, before we arrived, another patient had had a heart attack in the office and so they were running a bit behind.  Not a problem, that was obviously not their fault and not something they could foresee.  So we wait.

An hour and a half later it is finally Nicholas' turn to be seen and we are taken back to the exam room where we are told to wait once again before stripping him down to be weighed.  The doctor was going to be a few minutes and they didn't want him to be cold.  Ok, I can handle that.  So again, we wait.

45 minutes later the nurse comes in to let me know that I can strip him down to a clean diaper so that they can weigh him.  I strip him down, she weighs him and I find that my little boy is no longer so little when his weight comes back at 18 lbs. 2 oz. and a little over 27 inches long.

So we head back to our room and the nurse checks Nicholas' head circumference and takes a look at his eczema.  While she is doing this he begins coughing.  (This is something he has done since birth).  She asks if he is okay and I tell her that he's fine but she may want to step back because the cough is only the beginning of his reflux acting up.  She doesn't listen.  At this point Nicholas made a few gagging sounds and the nurse moves closer to take a better look at him.  Once again I mention that she may want to step back a little until this episode is over.  Again, she ignores me and moves a little closer to his face.  It was at this point that she realized that maybe I knew what I was talking about as Nicholas threw up all over her.  If I were a meaner person, this is where I would have said "I told you so," but I didn't.  I held my tongue and handed her some paper towels.

She left the room and sent in another nurse to let me know that the doctor would be with us in a moment.  I know, you're on the edge of your seat waiting to see what happened next right?  Well guess what, we waited.

Half and hour later the doctor comes in looking like he has just lived through the worst day of his life and explains that 1 of the 3 doctors in the office called in sick that morning and it seemed as though everyone and their brother needed an appointment that day.  The other doctor working with him had ridden along with the heart attack patient from earlier that morning to the hospital.  I really felt bad for the doctor as he really was trying his best to make sure that everyone was seen and helped but at this point it had been 4 hours since we left home and Nicholas was not shy about letting everyone around him know that he needed a nap.

He was tired and cranky and I can't really say that I blame him.  When the doctor tried to check his hips he was met with an ear-piercing scream and when he tried to take a quick look inside Nick's diaper, my baby boy showered him in pee. 

With the events of the past few hours fresh in my mind and Nicholas' screams filling my ears, I completely forgot about the shots he was due to get.  That is, until the 2 nurses walked in with 4 syringes.  They basically decided that to make the experience as quick as possible, they were each going to give Nicholas 2 shots.  One nurse would take one leg and the second nurse would take the other leg.  On the count of 3 they would each give him a shot.  Then they would repeat the process with the second set of shots.

The first set went fine and in fact, Nicholas didn't make a peep.  He just laid there on the table watching the nurses while glancing over at me every few seconds.  The second set of shots, on the other hand, went exactly how I expected them to.  Within seconds he stuck out his bottom lip, his eyes filled with tears and he started screaming.

No matter how I comforted him, the screaming continued until we got home, which was almost 5 hours after we left that morning.  My poor little boy fell asleep and napped like he has never napped before.  Even after he woke up, he wanted nothing more than to just lay in his bouncy seat in his warm camouflage sweats that daddy got for him and relax.

Poor baby, mommy felt the same way.