Hope you're not one of those "Sorry" people...

Lexi is quite a popular gal here at the Women's hospital! The nurses are able, if they choose, to ask to be a primary nurse for any of the patients. That means that any time that nurse is on the schedule, they are assigned to take care of that particular patient. Nurse B asked to be our primary within our first week of being here. We still don't see her often because most nurses work 3 days a week for 12 hour shifts. If you already have a primary nurse and another nurse requests to have you, they are called associates, and you can have as many associates as you want. D, J, and C are our associate nurses. We also have another primary nurse, D p.m., for the night shift. All these nurses are absolutely wonderful and we're so lucky to have them. Even Jason likes them! I feel totally at ease leaving Lexi here when I know one of them is on the schedule. There are still many days that none of these nurses are on the schedule and we end up with someone else. We've gotten to know MANY nurses already and almost all of them have been fabulous. Almost all of them.

A recent nurse left something to be desired. She was nice and her intentions were good, but PUH-LEEEZE! I don't know if she had to talk me through every single step of what she was doing in an effort to teach me, or if it was her way of reassuring me that she was following all the rules and procedures. She offered to let me bathe Alexis, but I was happy to let her do it (I'll have plenty of time to bathe her when we go home). When I told her she could go ahead and bathe Lexi, she asked me, "you won't be offended?" Huh? Offended? Then as she bathed her, she explained every little step of how she was doing it. "Now, I always use lots of washcloths. You never want to wash her skin and then dip the dirty washcloth in the clean water." Seriously? I get the point, but this is a tiny infant in a very clean environment. How dirty do you think she got? Did she go rolling around in the mud while I was out?

When the boys came to visit (keep in mind, they've been here at least 3 other times) The nurse had to walk us through all the steps. "They need to wash their hands (no kidding!), put on their gowns (no kidding!) and they have 15 minutes (no kidding!). And after signing the form confirming that they are free from colds, flus, rashes, strep, whooping cough, acne, leprocy, etc. (no other nurse has ever made us sign this form--didn't even know this form existed), she then verbally asked me if they were free from all these things and listed about 25 conditions that they couldn't have. I think she might have had a coronary if one of the boys had sneezed during the visit. Thank the Lord she didn't see Blake when he showed off the booger he picked.

At feeding time I was monitored and talked through the process of how to bottle feed Alexis. Is this my first child? Do you think I don't know how to burp her? It would have been a bit patronizing if Alexis had been my first child.

This nurse was also like one of those really annoying people who apologizes for absolutely everything and then when you tell them to stop apologizing they say, "I know--I'm sorry!" Nice people, but so very irritating! When Alexis's pump went off (the pump beeps loudly when the feedings run out), she couldn't come to turn off the pump and make the beeping stop. So she had someone get my attention and said, "Mrs. Smith (DO NOT call me Mrs. Smith. I'm younger than you [or at least I'd like to think I look younger than you] and Mrs. Smith makes pies), I'm so sorry to bother you, I know you're busy, but would you mind (is she ever going to get to the point?) because I can't get away, because I'm feeding this other baby, and I'm almost done (move it along woman--my hair is getting grayer) but could you--would you, turn off the pump, since I'm busy and can't get over there right now but I'll be there just as soon as I'm done feeding this little boy who's a premie from Fort Wayne with blue eyes and an innie belly button, who hasn't yet mastered the art of mixing his own formula?" Okay, so I made up that last part, but oh my goodness! I could have had the pump turned off months ago if you'd just spit it out!

There is hand sanitizer all over this hospital and we were told VERY clearly that we need to be VERY aware and if we should accidently touch our clothes or faces or ANYTHING, we should use more sanitizer. I would watch this nurse sanitize her hands, come over to Alexis to barely touch the feeding tube to see that things were flowing, and sprint back to the sanitizer. Okay, so maybe she didn't sprint, but this woman was beyond OCD. She was CDO (that's OCD in alphabetical order). I'll bet this woman sanitizes her hands every 45 seconds. I'm NOT kidding.

It's great that we can request to have certain nurses, but I wish we could annonymously black list a nurse so we wouldn't have to see her again. She made me a nervous wreck. Luckily, those nurses are few and far between. And even this nut case adored my little Lexi.

We've had quite the steady stream of visitors today as well (still no word if they will stop allowing visitors at the hospital because of the swine flu). Jason arrived around 11 a.m. and then I showed up with Nicholas and Blake and JoJo around 1 p.m. After they left, Jim and Connie arrived for a bit. Then Brent and Elizabeth. Then Jason's uncle and aunt (Tom and Vikki). Alexis is sleeping in her cozy little bouncy seat, no changes with her care. She's eaten well today by bottle (thank goodness nurse nut job told me that the nipple goes in her mouth--she may not have eaten as well had I accidently tried to feed her by ear) and if everything continues to go well, they will probably adjust the bolus feedings tomorrow and the tube feeding will be in a more condensed amount of time. We still have absolutely no indication of how long she will be here.