Interviewing Peds

Jeff and I began our morning with a "meet and greet" with a pediatrician who is in a practice affiliated with UMC. She was nice. She is a recent graduate of UofA. She is very upbeat. The upside to her is that she doesn't have a full roster of patients yet. The downside to her is that she doesn't have the experience that some other doctors do.

Jeff and I arrived at the NICU before Henry's 11AM feed. Annie, a nurse whom hadn't taken care of Henry before, was his day nurse. We really liked her a lot. We mentioned a couple peds whom we are considering. She had high praises for two of them in particular; Henry Bianchi and Sosan Moussa have been the peds for her children and grand children. Bianchi is the doctor whom Jeff talked with on the telephone the other day. His practice is closer to where we live than the other ones. We've made an appointment with Moussa for Monday at 4:15PM. She's the pediatrician for Hans' kids (a three year old and an infant).

Henry nursed for about 13 minutes at 11AM. No problems. His heart rate started to slow down at the 13 minute mark, so I sat him up, rubbed his back, and tried to burp him before the alarms went off. Afterward, he wasn't particularly interested in nursing anymore.

Jeff took a cute picture of Henry next to my Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book. I am a huge Harry Potter fan. The book came out last Saturday. I haven't gotten very far into it (page 145), but it is good so far. I haven't yet mastered the ability to nurse and read simultaneously. In other HP news, our friends Talia and Scott sent us Bertie Bott's Beans candy in celebration of Harry Potter mania. Jeff tried them the other day; I'm still working up my courage. For those of you who aren't HP fans, Bertie Bott's are like jelly bellies that come in a wide range of surprising flavors. Jeff did try sardine, grass, and soap.

At 12:30PM, we headed downstairs for a "meet and greet" with Dr. Kimberly Gerhart. We originally were supposed to meet with a Dr. William Madden, who specializes in children with disabilities. Rene (the lactation consultant) recommended him, but he is retiring. Gerhart was nice. She is an assistant professor on the UMC faculty. The peds clinic is in the hospital (3rd floor). The routine would be to meet with a resident before meeting with her each time we have an appointment.

We had lunch in the cafeteria and made it back upstairs for Henry's 2PM feeding. He nursed for 7 minutes, so Annie ended up putting half a feed through his NG tube to compensate. About a half hour after the food went through, Henry refluxed and had brady that took a while to recover from.

Other than that, Henry slept on my chest until my mom came at 3:30PM. We just got home. I'm planning to take a long nap as I slept less than 2 hours last night.