18 Months Already!

Spent tonight reading about toddler developmental milestones, while said toddler was in complete cling mode. 

Cate is drastically behind in one area - getting teeth, which is something we obviously cannot control.  The charts suggest she should be starting to get her molars in…but she still only has two teeth on the bottom and one on top.  At her fifteen month appointment, the doctor was hopeful that by eighteen months, she’d have several new teeth – but only the one on top has come through and no others are showing signs on coming in.

She also seems to be mildly behind in another area - the charts I've read suggest she should be saying 30-50 words and we've only counted 21 so far.  They are: dog, cat, Audrey (one of our cats), Naya (one of our dogs), done, down, yes, mama, dada, ball, hi, hey, bubble, car, go, two, three, eye, mouth, juice and baby.  She does, however, show a clear understanding for many more words besides that – probably several hundred, because we actually talk to her instead of using baby-speak.

But on every other milestone, she's at least 2 months ahead of schedule, including various motor and social skills like:

• throwing balls overhand,
• running,
• going up and down stairs on her own,
• pointing to pictures or facial features when the name is said,
• beginning potty training,
• proficiently using forks and spoons,
• and reliably following 2-part commands like "go get and bring back". 

All this just to get ready for her 18-month doctor's appointment tomorrow!

Seriously, the Medical Edition

We had several seriously?!?!?! moments today that I can share. (By the way...head over to my How to Have a Baby blog to see the latest on baby's medical issues/status.)

First, baby has been having daily weight checks, color checks and bilirubin blood draws since this past Tuesday. Our doctor has Saturday and Sunday hours for urgent care and follow-ups, but the location varies between the main location and a sub location. This weekend was at the sub location. The nurse at the main location advised us yesterday to simply call the sub location at 9 AM today to see what time they wanted us to come in.

We're good at following directions, so we called at 9:05, and explained why we were calling and what our little girl needed to have done. The girl at the desk told us that a new nurse was working today and so she didn't want to over-burden her, and so couldn't we wait until Sunday? Um, no. So she said she'd page out our doctor to see what she said and get back to us if we "actually" had to come in. Ok...we'll play.

An hour later, no phone call. We decided to give it another half hour...and then called back. The response? "Oh, yeah. Well, how soon can you be here?"

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? This sub location is almost 20 miles away...and we were waiting on a call back to get ready to leave the house. So, really, you can wait on us. Seriously!

Second, when we finally got to the doctor's office, we ended up sitting there for TWO HOURS just to have her weight checked (she gained almost 3 ounces versus yesterday) and to have a lab slip drawn up to take to the hospital since the doctor office's lab was closed. TWO HOURS. And it totally put the little one off her feeding schedule. I finally went back to the nursing room to start feeding her when she was a half hour overdue and then the nurse came in to weigh her and promised that we'd be on our way soon. So she only got half a feeding. Seriously?!?

Finally, when we got to the hospital, we ended up with a stupid lab tech. She asked why we were doing daily blood draws (um, the diagnosis is on the lab slip, sweetheart) and so I explained that we had been monitoring her bilirubin levels since Tuesday to make sure they were coming down. She looked rather alarmed when I told her the starting level and so I commented that the blue light therapy was working to help bring her numbers down bit by bit. The tech said that she didn't know that phototherapy could be done at home and she just assumed we were doing it at the hospital. Seriously?

Rewind. So this tech thought that we came to the hospital, took our child out of her blue light therapy, and brought her up to the lab? Um, I've heard of self service, but that crosses the border into stupid land. Here's your sign. Yes, the baby is getting therapy at home. Duh!

As a postscript, the nurse at the doctor's office and the lab tech both referred to Baby Catherine as "he" multiple times even as I was correcting them on her gender. Oy.

So it's been a Seriously Stupid Saturday all the way around. And despite the lab tech saying the results would be ready in an hour...we haven't received any results. So, on our own, and I'm sure AMA, we've decided to say "screw it" to doing a weight check and a blood draw tomorrow and try to capture an entire day to ourselves at home without working around medical crap...Monday will be soon enough to do her next checks!

Hope ya'll are having a great weekend!

We Found...

...a Pediatrician!

I'd been worried that we'd just procrastinated too long and wouldn't find one before Spoiled Baby got here.

We were really looking for a lot:

• Female.
• Accepting new patients.
  
• Office within a 10-minute drive.
• Associated with the same hospital system as my other doctors.
• "Convenient" office hours other than those that overlap with normal business hours.
• Knowledgeable of many ailments beyond the typical childhood sniffles - including allergies and thyroid issues, since I have both.
• Accepts both my current insurance and the insurance I'm moving to in 2009.

We had a great interview yesterday morning with not only the doctor but also her nurse practitioner and her nurse. We asked a zillion questions...and she asked us a bunch in return. Really felt like we made a connection, so we're thrilled!

Bad news is that although she's associated with the same hospital system, she's not associated with the specific hospital I will deliver at - just too far away. She assured us that a qualified staff pediatrician would check out Spoiled Baby while we're in the hospital and that as long as we call as soon as the baby is born, they'll schedule a 24-hour post-hospital check-up as well as a 1-week check up to ensure all is well!

YAHOO! One less worry.