serendipity, candid camera

[mamajoan]

Well, judging from the lack of response on my last post, I guess no one is really on the edge of his/her seat waiting to hear whether Isaac has conjunctivitis, aka pink-eye. But I'll tell you the answer anyway: he does. Or at least, he is presumed to have it, because when I called the pediatrician's office and talked to the nurse practitioner she said that that's what it was and that she didn't need to see him, and she called in a prescription.

So now I have this little tube of gel stuff that I have to squirt into his eyes, three times a day for 5-7 days. OMG!!! Are they fucking kidding me with this shit? Have YOU ever tried to put anything in a 2-year-old's eyes? No, you haven't, and right now you're thinking, "no, I haven't, thank God," which is exactly the right thing to be thinking, dammit. I mean, hell, Isaac freaks out if he so much as gets a drop of water in his eye during his bath. Yeesh.

Anyway, it does seem to be helping, though. His eyes are less goopy already, although he's got a pretty bad runny nose and cough, which the NP said is probably related and will probably clear up by the time the medication is done with. Sigh.

So, I had to take the day off work yesterday, because he wasn't allowed back to daycare. We ended up taking the bus to my mom's workplace and having lunch with her, then took the bus back to her place, had a pretty good nap, and hung around until mom got home, had dinner with her and went home. It could have been worse.

In much cheerier news, today I got an unexpected ultrasound peek at Cosmo! That was exciting. I went to meet with the people who are running that research study I mentioned here before (they are studying pregnant women who previously had a preemie). I talked to the somewhat clueless research assistant chick, who went over all the boring informed-consent stuff, and then the doctor came in and started going over my medical history. She balked at the part of the survey where I had marked "don't know" on the question "are you currently pregnant with multiples?" The study requires that you have a singleton pregnancy. I explained that I just marked it that way in the interest of complete honesty since I haven't had any ultrasound or anything yet so I can't completely rule out twins, although I said I find it quite unlikely. "Oh sure," she said, "famous last words." I liked her. ;)

Anyway, she hemmed and hawed over what to do about that, and then she was like, "hey, let's just do a quick scan right now." I of course jumped up and kissed her expressed my willingness, so we popped into the next room and she hooked up the ultrasound machine. And there was little Cosmo!!

(I never had this kind of ultrasound with Isaac, you know. I had one at six weeks because of some spotting, but he was just a tiny dot at that point and you really had to just take the tech's word for it. I had another one as part of a stress test after I went into preterm labor, but everything was so worried and stressed at that point, I didn't exactly get a chance to do the whole "look, that's my baby!!" thing.)

So it was super-cool to see little Cosmo in there, wiggling around like crazy, looking like an actual human being with a head and little arms and legs and stuff. OMG! It was great. And the doctor kept saying "aww, it's so cute." :) She gave me some pictures, and she measured Cosmo's "crown-to-rump length" which was 4.3 centimeters (that's about 1.75 inches) and which is exactly right for his/her age. I shall try to scan in the pictures, but I don't know how well they'll scan, given the typical blurriness of ultrasound pictures anyway. You really have to use your imagination. But I'll give it a try.

Anyway, that's the exciting, thrilling, and delightful news around here. ;) Whee!

Comments

[velcroswench.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Ew and thank goodness to the eye. W00t to the scan. :)

[tiggrrl.livejournal.com]

I was hoping he just had allergies, but at least you've got the goop to clear it up now (even though I can imagine what putting it in his eyes must be like, having struggled with rinsing a three-year-old's hair in the bath).

As for Cosmo, coolio! We got the early scan (8 weeks or something) and it was really neat to see Kitten wiggling around.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

Zoe also hates having drops put in her eyes. Giving her a (different, but similarly shaped) bottle to hold while it's going has helped. Having her hold the tissue ready so she can help blot herself afterwards if needed has helped. Asking her which eye she wanted done first has helped. Asking her if it can be done now, or in 5 minutes has helped. Basically, anything that gave her (the appearance of) more control over the situation helped.

And a good headlock "we have to do this so we're going to do it now", when absolutely necessary. :)

[sandykidd.livejournal.com]

I only didn't comment because I was waiting for the update. *pouts*

I'm glad both your wee ones are doing okay, though. Bummer about the eye goop. Both my sisters caught pink-eye in school a few times, but their parents usually just kept them at home until it went away on its own. Once, we had to get goopy stuff for the younger one, but she insisted on putting it in by herself (at age six, that's pretty cool). Granted, she's the kid who bit clean through her tongue at age three and didn't cry or tell anyone until it had healed enough for her to stick her tongue out at our other sister again. High pain threshold.

[bodacia.livejournal.com]

That's cool! I seem to remember that Isaac was "chickpea." How did you come up with Cosmo?