Yesterday was Morgan’s first day at daycare and my first day back at work ‘“ and also I think the longest day of my entire life.
We found Miss Martie through a newspaper ad. She is 75, has had a home daycare for 40 years, she is located perfectly between my work and home, and has a daughter who is a NICU nurse who lives right behind her. She only has 4 kids, 2 infants and 2 toddlers and only does ages 0 ‘“ 2, because she is a nurturer not a teacher. And her price although a little more than we had planned on was within our budget.
So I dropped Morgan off, and Martie took him right away and it looked like it was going to be a good day for us all. That is until I called to check in at 11 am. Miss Martie said that Morgan had not slept all morning and that she didn’t know if she could take care of him because of the monitor, and could I come at 12 and give him his feeding. So I did.
When I got there her first questions were about the monitor, how often he has apnea, and is he more or less prone to SIDS because of the monitor. I reassured her on all these issues. Turns out the leads came off a couple of times and she was a little over whelmed by it all. I showed her how to put the lead wires through his diaper tabs to keep the leads from pulling off, feed him and he was happy when I went back to work. She said he wasn’t fussy for more than a few minutes, so I knew Morgan was being his usual mellow self.
For the rest of the day my stomach was in knots wondering if she was going to decide she couldn’t take care of him, and I was afraid to call to check in because I thought if I did that’s what she’™d say.
Just before 5, I arrived to pick up Morgan, comforted that she hadn’t called, and hoping that the afternoon was smooth and that Miss Martie would give herself a couple of days to get used to the new situation before she would give up on it. Sadly that was not to be the case. She greeted me warmly at the door, and Morgan was happy as could be, but all of Morgan’s belonging piled in the foyer told me all that I needed to know, Miss Martie would not be keeping Morgan on.
She said that while she was holding Morgan, one of the other toddlers in her care had eaten too many crackers and it was too difficult for her to get up and get to her because of having to also pick up Morgan’s monitor. Although why with an 8 foot cord on the monitor she couldn’t just walk over to the baby, I’™ll never know ‘“ and I didn’t ask. Obviously it would do not good to argue or reason with her to keep Morgan, if she didn’t want him there was no point in his being there.
As we were leaving she tried to shower Morgan with kisses which was hard to do because I was holding him in my arms, and she went on and on about how beautiful he is and how she fell for him, but at that point I just needed to move on and try to find a replacement care giver, so that I can get back to work, again.
My paid family leave benefits have been exhausted, and I don’t think I can work 8 hours from home and take good care of Morgan. He is spending more time awake these days, as he should and he needs to be stimulated to encourage his mental and physical development.
So, we have an appointment at 12pm today, with my second choice. This facility was only second because it was not conveniently located, and because Miss Martie in addition to being perfectly situated between work and home, also seemed to be a good choice of a caretaker for Morgan. The owner of this new facility is a registered nurse. I have told her everything that happened with Miss Martie, and that Morgan is on an Apnea monitor and will continue to be on it for at least another month. She understands and agrees that it is better to be cautious in tasking him off, than rush it and risk him having an unmonitored Apnea episode.
Morgan’s Dr wants him to stay on the monitor until the end of the month and wants us to allow his apnea episode to go 10 seconds before we try to stimulate him out of it. Basically she wants to see if he is self resolving his Apnea episodes on his own.
I know it is a big deal to take on a child with breathing problems, but I also believe that the monitor takes away the risk of something traumatic happening, and provides additional protection and peace of mind in regard to his risk of SIDS.
And as if there weren’t enough complications’¦ the apnea monitor company switched to a different kind of leads, and since we have had the new leads, he went from having episodes every 10 ‘“ 14 days, to having them almost every day. I tried to get the old leads back, but they don’t have them, and I tried to get a new monitor, but that didn’t work either. With the new leads the apnea monitor will go off while and I holding him and can feel that he is breathing.
In the 2 weeks since we have been letting his episodes go 10 seconds before stimulating him, he has had about 10 episodes, 2 of which went past 10 seconds. The remainder self resolved in less than 5 seconds. My honest feeling is that I would rather keep him on the monitor until he is spell free otherwise we trade the nuisance of carrying the monitor around with the fear of him having an undetected apnea episode.
All I really know is that we love him with all our hearts and want the very best for him and also want him to be safe.