BabyBug did something pretty freakin’ cool tonight.
We asked earlier today if we might be able to take Leah outside for a couple of minutes just so she could experience fresh air and sunshine. The docs said no. We did get her nurses to agree to let us bring her to the pull-out couch a few feet from the crib so we could give her real tummy-time and give her some new surroundings for a little while. Mandy sat next to Leah on the pullout bed and put her on her tummy. Leah struggled for a minute and then pushed herself up – and then rolled over. Now, to be fair, Mandy was sitting on the bed so there was a slight incline in the direction that Leah rolled. But she pulled herself up onto her arms and she tipped herself over. That’s gotta be some sort of cool milestone, right? First accidental milestone? We tried to get her to do it again on video, but she had worn herself out and spent most of the remainder of her tummy time trying to eat the sheet we had laid out under her.
Now for a random musing: It’s funny how nurses sometimes try to rationalize a situation without fully assessing it – kind of like the other day when they assumed BabyBug’s horrible raspy breaths were actually the sounds of the suction tube sucking when in fact they suggested the opposite. Tonight I let the night nurse know that Leah’s suction pump was vacillating between off and barely-on-but-not-really (it’s on low intermittent but this was pretty ridiculously low). She said it was supposed to be like that because it was on low intermittent suction, and headed back out. I watched the meter for a minute to see if it would change, and then went out and got her again and said I thought maybe someone had turned it down because the meter was not really moving and neither were the secretions in the tube (it’s happened a few times that a nurse would put it on continuous suction to flush the tube and then forget to switch it back to intermittent, so someone turning it down was certainly a possibility). She looked and repeated that it was supposed to be like that. I said no, usually the meter is a lot higher. She said she didn’t want to put it any higher because it would suction too much. I said it wasn’t moving at all.
Then she looked more closely and saw that the tube wasn’t plugged into the pump.
As soon as she plugged it in, the meter shot back up to where it was supposed to be.
Do I feel a little foolish for not noticing that myself? Sure. But it’s not a connection that I typically deal with since it’s on the other end of a tube that is 4-6 feet long (I guesstimate). And in any event, is it my job to make sure the medical equipment is installed correctly? No. But it’s my job to speak up when something feels wrong. Thankfully this nurse did follow through when I continued to push the issue, instead of letting her ego get the better of her. I can just imagine how things might have gone with Mr. Mean Man. But I still think it’s interesting/odd/funny how the instinct seems to be to assume things are as they should be.
Baby and Mommy
