first medical visit

Today is Princess' first morning with us. She woke up at 6+ am and after she had her bottle of milk, she promptly fell asleep again on her "watching television chair".

As we will be bringing Princess to see the pediatrician this morning, I gave Princess a bath (and in the process, I had to have a quick shower myself as she was having fun playing with the water in the bathtub). Smelling sweet and fresh, Princess grinned at us while she waited for us to get ready to go out.

Princess looked pensive as she wondered why daddy and mommy were taking so long to get ready.

Finally! Time to go out. We placed Princess in the Maxi-Cosi bassinet which we borrowed from our friends (NN and SF). The bassinet doubles-up as a rocker, a child seat (in the car) and it can also be attached to stroller legs and used as a stroller.

Our first stop was to see the pediatrician. Princess was weighed and her weight recorded as 5.7 kg. When the pediatrician examined her, he commented that parents like to ask unimportant questions such as "Will my baby grow up tall?", "Will my baby have big eyes?", "Will my baby have curly eyelashes?", etc. The pediatrician was pleased with Princess and he suggested that we feed her some milk before he proceeded with the next stage of her medical examination. The orange and red bag that you see in the photograph below is a diaper bag. I am rather impressed by it - it has so many compartments to hold the milk bottle, thermos flask, etc.

After her feed, Princess gave a happy and satisfied grin. Doesn't she look adorable in the photograph below?

Our next stop was the laboratory where Princess would undergo a blood test and a urine test.

Like me, the veins on the inner side of Princess arm (where her elbows are) are not prominent and the two nurses who attended to her had some difficulty locating her veins. Finally, they found one vein in the inner side of her left arm (like mine) and none on the inner side of her right arm (like mine) and they proceeded to use the syringe. Unfortunately, when the needle was inserted into Princess, the vein moved and hence, the presence of the needle caused tremendous pain to Princess and she started crying. The nurses were unable to draw sufficient blood and they regretfully informed me that they would need to try again, this time by drawing blood from the back of her hand. However, this alternative method would involve inserting something into the back of her hand and the blood would be collected drop by drop into a test tube. This method was slow and very traumatic for the mother to watch. As we had no other choice, the nurses proceeded with this method. Other than one yelp when the needle (?) was inserted in the back of Princess' hand (I am not sure what was inserted as I was asked to place my body over Princess' body to hold her down), Princess was very well behaved during the blood collection and did not cry. The interesting part was when the ordeal was over - Princess gave a "pissed look" to the nurses! *grin*

Notwithstanding the incident with the blood collection, Princess was a hit with all the nurses over there. They were entranced by the smiley face of Princess and the nurses crowded around Princess to coo over her.

After the blood collection, the next step was the urine collection. As it is not easy to obtain a urine sample from a baby, we were advised to be patient. Princess fell asleep in the process.

Princess is the most fun when she just wakes up. She is alert, rested and ready to play. She also has many facial expressions and she can raise her eyebrows easily.

Princess was curious about the bandage on her hand. She was such a brave girl when her blood was extracted.

We were not successful in obtaining the urine sample from Princess because her legs were too active. We shall try again tomorrow. In the meantime, after a whole day out, we brought a tired Princess home.

When my mother, my brother (LB) and LB's wife (MF) arrived at our home, Princess had already fallen asleep. My mother had bought a baby cot for Princess from IKEA. As my mother will be babysitting Princess during weekdays at our home while we are at work, the baby cot was placed in the hall where my mother can keep an eye on Princess during the day. As such, this will be Princess' "day cot". Thank you, Ma for the gift. It is lovely.

Our friends (NN and SF) will be lending us another baby cot to be placed in our bedroom. That will be Princess' night cot.