Jessica’s check-up at the surgery yesterday went well. She had her eyes, heart, spine, hips, head, etc., all checked and the doctor was happy with how she’s been building up the strength in her neck. The doctor handled Jessica very well, firmly but gently, but Jessica still got a bit grizzly. I suspected that even though Jessica had had a decent size feed only a little while before we left the flat she was getting hungry again, especially since there had been a bit of a wait before we’d been able to come through to the consultation room… Back in the waiting room, waiting to be called to our second appointment of the day, she started to vocalise her complaints properly, but a quiet song in her ear and my little finger in her mouth reassured her fairly quickly.
The second appointment was for Jessica’s first immunisation jabs. It was a fairly safe bet that she wouldn’t like it, and she certainly didn’t! And the nurse administrating the vaccinations didn’t really help… I ‘d had this particular nurse before myself and she can come across as very patronising, talking to grown-ups as if they’re little children. Now that she was going to give Jessica her jabs, she wanted me to sing a song at the same time as she sang one too, which was all good and fine. But the nurse then promptly wound up this horrid, plastic music box and then started ‘singing’ a completely different tune herself, very loud and without any trace of melody – reminded me of when people jokingly go ‘la-la-la’ with their fingers in their ears, pretending to ignore something or someone…! Don’t know if she was tone-deaf or just nervous. I found it really hard to sing to Jessica in that racket (it was fairly comical, really) but did my best to lean in towards Jessica’s face to try to let my voice and presence block everything else out. Surely it would have been much more constructive to let mum decide what would calm her baby best and leave her to it…? Jessica was wailing away and I really don’t blame her – the noise was getting me pretty stressed and I wasn’t having unexplained needles stuck in me…!
The nurse did do us a useful favour in offering me a quiet room to sit and feed Jessica afterwards and at the end of the feed Jessica seemed to have forgotten all about the jabs. We made our way out of the surgery and round the back to the health visitor’s clinic for the weekly weighing. Jessica is now 5.96 kilos (13lbs 1oz), which actually is slightly over the expected weight increase for her birth weight – very nice and healthy on a diet of mainly breastmilk.
Had been told by the nurse that some babies do react to the jabs and Ian popped into the shops on his way home from work to get some baby painkillers just in case, but I’m pleased to say that Jessica didn’t get a temperature or anything and slept soundly that night. Actually, the night before yesterday she slept through until after 4am and this morning until after 3am, so I only had to get up once in the night to feed her – the next feed was after 9am and 8am respectively. At only two months of age this is of course mostly likely to be exceptions to the rule, but hopefully it means Jessica’s moving towards sleeping through the night and concentrating meal times to daytime…
Gabriella