While the girls were in the NICU, the doctors performed weekly/biweekly checks on the girls' eyes to make sure they did not develop retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), which is an eye disease that can affect preemies. After several months of constant checkup, the NICU doctor officially released them from his care under the condition they received a followup checkup at nine months in February 2013.
Having been warned previously about the ability to get doctor appointments, I called the eye doctor's office in October to make the February appointment (as a tangential topic, WHY are these doctors allegedly booked so far in advance? Seems completely ridiculous to me - what other areas of life do you have to make a routine appointment so many months in advance???). And, like so many things this past year, the appointment date arrived very quickly.
Since Matt had an irreconcilable conflict, it was just Karen and I that made the trip. We arrived right on time (or maybe a few minutes after), but fortunately I had completed all of the paperwork so it just needed to be turned in to the office (another tangent - WHY do you have to fill out about three different rounds of paperwork, PER baby, that basically ask for the same things???? Can't you just look at ONE piece of paper???? Is it that hard?????). Despite this, we still sat in the waiting room for about 30 minutes until they called us back.
At that point, the girls were given eye drops to dilute their eyes. And, of course, this takes time - about 20 minutes. We opted to stay in the back room for this second waiting period. Sure enough, about 45 minutes later (twice as long as necessary), the nurse/assistant checked on us and then moved us to the examination room. Where we waited for another 20 minutes.
FINALLY, the doctor came in. She checked both girls, and said their eyes looked good (woohoo - that was something I was worried about). But, due to my ocular history, she suggested we come back so she could recheck them in about a year (btw, good thing I mentioned it, too - otherwise she would have seen them at age 4).
So, to sum up:
Driving to the appointment and back: 50-60 minutes
Waiting (total) : 75 minutes
Actual doctor/examination time : 15 minutes
Such is the life of doctor appointments with babies. (Good story, Hansel. Ha.)
To make this post more interesting, here are some cute pictures of the girls I took while we waited. And to the girls' credit, they held up really well despite the missed nap and change in the routine.
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| In the first waiting room. Hazel already looks bored. |
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| Abby: Hey, maybe we can slip out and catch a movie. Hazel: Shh. I think they're on to us. |
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| Abimus. |
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| "Is it our turn yet? No? What's the holdup?" |
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| Playing on the floor in waiting room no. 2. |
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| Tile makes for an interesting crawling surface. |
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| How bored do you need to be before you decide doing the splits sounds fun? |
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| Hazel strikes a cute pose. |
1 comments:
Love those dresses! Super cute!
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