One day to go!

Today was the day that we got to pre-register for Ana's surgery tomorrow!

Because purple is Ana's favorite color according to her brothers, I couldn't resist using this lovely purple wall for a portrait :-)

At the pre-registration, we also got to do the pre-op blood draw, which turned into a bloodless stabbing fest... Ana was not giving up her blood today! After several tries and a lot of screaming (from Ana, not the nurses), the nurses decided to see if they could do her labs tomorrow when they set her line under sedation. Since her surgery is fairly simple and low risk, the surgeon was fine with that. Whew! That means Ana won't be conscious for her next needle poke.

I was happy with how the blood draw went, even though no blood was forthcoming. Here's why: Ana had her first blood draw shortly after hitting US soil. At that blood draw she was like a statue. No crying, no wiggling, she just let the phlebs poke around in her hand and squeeze out teeny drops of blood.

Fast forward seven months... Today Ana was enraged that those nurses were poking around under her skin. It was hard to see her so worked up, but I was also really proud of her for responding appropriately and vocally! Go girl!

The other thing that made me happy was that I followed advice that I have heard about not holding your child for a painful procedure. The reasoning is that for a child who is cognitively so young, you want your arms to be a safe place and to build trust by not allowing painful things to happen while you are holding your child. 

Today I made a nurse hold Ana for the stab-fest, er, attempted blood draw. Of course I was right there talking to her the whole time, but I wanted to distance myself from the discomfort. When the travesty was finally over, Ana was so happy to come to me! She was still peeved, but she calmed down pretty fast and seemed to bear me no ill will, which I KNOW would not have been the case had I been holding her the whole time.

This may not work with every kid, but I will definitely make the doctors be the bad guys for this hospital stay!

I will keep you all posted as we go in for the real deal tomorrow!