A Traumatic Day for Eli

Eli had a pretty traumatic day today. He had an appointment with the nephrologist (kidney doctor) and she wanted quite a few blood labs on him. We are getting pretty familiar with the process and so when she requested about seven different tests I knew they would need quite a bit of blood - not so difficult to get on an adult, but with an infant it proposes some challenges. Often they can just do a heel stick. It's very much like the finger prick they do to test your blood prior to donating, except they do it in the babies' heel. With so many labs though that is not really feasible and they have to go in with a needle. Little baby arms are small and their veins are even smaller.

So the nurse puts the needle in Eli's arm and of course he starts screaming. This is not your average baby scream - he turns completely red and tenses up so much that he doesn't breath and no sound comes out for close to 20 seconds. Of course the nurse doesn't find the vein at first, or at all, but tries for well over a minute unsucessfully. Eli continues to scream and worst of all we have to do it all over again.

So ultimately they send me over to the children's hospital (where Eli was in the NICU) which is across the street from the clinic. They have more experience working with small babies there and we've had to go there in the past. I think Eli has had a total of 7 failed blood draws from his arms in the past 2 months.

I suggest a scalp vein because we've had more success with that in the past. On the first go around it takes the nurse about a minute to find the vein. Eli of course repeats his blood curdling scream. She's getting some blood but it's really not flowing fast enough to fill the 4 vial minimum she needs to get the tests done. There are two nurses involved in the process: one holding Eli and the vials while the other guides the needle.

The nurse relaxed her hold on Eli and of course he jerks away (he's flailing wildly at this point) and the needle comes out. Blood starts flowing freely down the side of Eli's head while the nurse tries desperately to scrape it up into an empty vial. I know why Amanda chooses to send me to these appointments instead of going herself - it's pretty hard to watch.

Third time is a charm. The third time on the opposite side of Eli's head provided enough blood to fill the last vial. Suffice it to say that the whole process was quite the ordeal. From the time I got to our appointment to the time I left was about four hours. Poor Eli.

Some blood stains on Eli's jacket.

Meanwhile Noah's at home.