This morning was Will’s one-year wellness exam.
What a traumatic experience!!
The good news: Will is perfect. His diet “could not be better”, his weight and height are fine (he’s caught up to his normal progression), and his milestones are great.
The bad news: He had to endure routine blood draw (standard in this office for one year wellness exams) and after, a vaccination.
The phlebotomist was horrible — she couldn’t decide where to stick him, made us switch rooms after spending over 5 minutes torturing him with a plastic tourniquet, and had me tightly squeeze his little body and limbs as he laid on my chest. It was awful — I’ve never heard Will so miserable. I did my best to remain composed and calm (so he wouldn’t feed off my nervousness) and softly sang to him. It was all I could do to not cry with him!
THEN… he had to get his 4th DTP. It’s important to note here that in previous injections, when I have held Will and sung to him and distracted him, he barely cries. So, I used our method again: held Will and distracted him with a favorite toy. The nurse didn’t pay attention to how she was holding his leg, and when she stuck him with the needle, he kicked. The needle turned under his skin, had to be pushed back in and the rest of the serum pushed… it caused lots of blood and a huge, red, swollen bruise. (To match the one on his little hand from the blood draw!)
Even when Will was a few weeks old and dealing with colic-like gas pains he didn’t cry as much as he did today.
It was awful… definitely, the hardest part of parenting!
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