Anytime the technician checks his abdomen Taylor isn’t allowed to eat 4 hours before the test. This is especially a challenge now because Taylor is in a growth spurt and very hungry every one to two hours. This made for a very difficult night for both of us.  His test was at 8am so he couldn’t eat after 4am. He slept from 4am until 6am and Josh took care of him until we had to leave at 6:30am. He was pretty quiet in his car seat for the first 15 minutes of the ride but then it became a scream fest.

Unfortunately this was not a quick trip because I had to take him back to the hospital where he was born so they could compare the results of this test with the previous test. This became a 1 hour journey because we have to travel through some pretty thick rush hour traffic – bah humbug! I almost stopped a couple of times to comfort him (and myself for that matter) but I realized that he wouldn’t be satisfied until he was fed, so I just kept driving.

When we got to the hospital my finger became permanently glued to Taylor’s mouth. He doesn’t like a pacifier but he’ll take a finger any day. We had to check in at 7:30am for his 8am appointment. The half hour after check in wasn’t bad as long as I kept moving and Taylor had a finger to suck on.

The hardest part of the whole morning was the test itself. I had to strip Taylor except for his diaper, which he doesn’t like at all and protested. But the protest intensified when the technician put the ultrasound goo on him and started poking and prodding him. Nothing would sooth him, not even my finger. He wailed and thrashed for the whole half hour. We even tried to stop part way through to calm him down but he was having none of it. He was hungry and exhausted and so was I – emotionally and physically.

When the test was done I had to wait for the radiologist to come in with the results and until then I still wasn’t allowed to feed him. I just wanted to feed him so that he could happily drift off into an exhaustion and food induced coma for the ride home. Finally we got the results and I was able to feed him and take him home.

This was definitely one of my most difficult challenges as a new mom. I hope that I don’t have to do it again any time soon. It makes me glad that I have a very healthy little boy that is growing and meeting his milestones.