We had Mallory’s first doctor’s appointment today – she was four days old. We hadn’t met our choice of pediatrician prior to this appointment so I was a little nervous about liking her (or rather, not liking her). But when she walked in and had on blue-rimmed glasses and seemed cool – I was pretty happy.
But before we met the doctor, we had to strip Mallory down to weigh her. That is when she decided to let loose with her first real bowel movement (we’d seen the nasty meconium the night before – was fun to hear Rick’s reaction to that at 2:30am) – as soon as we put her on the scale at the doctor’s office, she shot poop out EVERYWHERE. I was HORRIFIED. We grabbed her and got her into the exam room so we could put a diaper on her real quick. And then when the doctor came in and started her exam, you could hear Mallory filling her diaper. We ended up going through four diapers during that first doctor’s appointment. It was so embarrassing.
My big first question for the doctor was if we could take Mallory to our friend’s house to watch the Michigan football game the next day – Rick didn’t travel with the team and I thought he’d enjoy seeing what I usually do for away games. The doctor’s response was awesome – as long as there weren’t kids all up in her face, we were fine. And if there were kids there, just tell them that Mallory likes to have her toes tickled.
So since we got the OK to go out in public, I decided to go visit my old boss at the Cube and introduce her to Mallory (and it was about feeding time anyway). And then we went for our first trip to Target. We got a lot of “how old is she?” questions, followed by horrified looks when I said she was four days old. Oops! But she survived and I felt empowered by getting out of the house; I so desperately wanted – and needed – to feel normal.
After our errands, we got home in time for the visiting nurse to show up to check both of us out (sort of redundant since we’d just had M’s appointment, but whatever). Rick’s mom showed up about this time so after the nurse left, and I fed Mallory – I grabbed Cooper to go for a walk in the woods. Not one of my best ideas since I walked about halfway up the hill and realized that I was trying to do way too much too soon, so we didn’t get in the walk I wanted but it is the thought that counts, right?
(post written 25.5 months after the fact, on December 21, 2008).