What Did You Do Today?

As a mom, there are many days when you can look back and say that you did many things... and then there are the days when you feel like you did only one thing. Today was just one of these days. So, what is it that I did all day? Can you hear the drum roll in the background? ...

I tried to get Ladan to pee.

That's right, I spent 12 hours trying to get my child to go potty. Kind of funny that I've been spending the last four weeks training him to hold it (at least long enough to get to the potty), and then I needed him to go today, and he held it... for 12 hours!

For the last couple of days, he's been displaying signs of infection (fever, loss of appetite, general crankiness, darker urine, etc.). And for the last few weeks, he's been going in the potty really well. Basically, he says he needs to go, he sits on the potty, and then he immediately goes. Well, today, he kept trying and complaining that he couldn't go. I called the doctor's office to determine if these things could point to something fairly normal, but they wanted me to bring him in.

Let me back up and say that he didn't go to sleep until about 1:30 am last night (this morning) because he was trying to go to the bathroom, and he woke up again at about 7:30am. In between there, Gabe woke up twice to eat in the night (a lot for him at this point). So I started out the day completely exhausted.

On our way to the doctor's office, I was trying to explain to Ladan that we were going to go see the doctor and that we were going to get to do some fun things, like play with the trains in the office, stand on the black square (the scale), and speak kindly to the nurses and doctors. He was excited about standing on the black square... until we pulled into the parking lot and he recognized where he was. Immediately, he started saying, "Mommy, I can't stand on the black square. I can't stand on the black square."

We made it in, and the drama began. We had to sit in the exam room for quite a while before the doctor came in. Ladan was refusing to pee in the cup (not surprising). So I suggested we put one of those urine collection bags on his little body. We did this, and they let me leave for a while, which was great, because by this time, Gabe was starving and screaming bloody murder. This horrific sound doesn't come out of him very often, so added to Ladan's very angry screams at the doctor and nurse, it did not make for a pleasant listening experience. The doctor was sure to comment on their shrill voices. I was sure to respond with a smile and a nod.

So we loaded into the car again and headed across the street to sit and watch the construction crew building a new structure. It was pretty cool, and Ladan really enjoyed it. Still no pee, so we went on to Target for a while. Still no pee, so we went home to try to take naps.

By this time, Ladan had gone #2 just a bit in his pull-up, so I went to change it. There were probably about 2ml of urine in the bag, which is all they would have needed (for those of you who are unfamiliar with liquid measurements, this is about 1/5 of a teaspoon--not too much). The problem was that the bag wasn't sticking to him all that well anymore, so the stool had contaminated the opening to the bag, and I had to throw it away.

So I stuck him on the potty chair with the sterile cup inside the well of the potty. Didn't work. We moved the potty seat into the shower so the warm water on his feet and the sound of the shower might prompt him to go. Didn't work. I called the doctor's office to find out if we could work more on this tomorrow so I could put my exhausted child down for a nap. They wanted the "specimen" today.

Chet was gracious to come home right after class instead of staying for a regular meeting he has. I was SO GRATEFUL! I was able to leave Gabe sleeping while I packed Ladan back into the car and went back to the doctor's office. This time I took his potty chair with us hoping that it might prompt him to go.

We went into an examination room and settled in. I positioned the sterile cup in the well of the potty again and sat Ladan on it. Then I sanitized the seat of one of the chairs for use as a table and busted out his Goldfish (to make him thirsty) and full glass of water. He'd already had 3 glasses of water by that point, but I thought it was worth a shot. So we sat there for another hour and 15 minutes. Still no pee. They put another bag on him, and we went home with instructions for how to take his "specimen" (I keep putting this word in quotations because I think it's a strange word, and I'm not sure how I feel about using it) to the hospital lab after office hours.

All the way home, Ladan was saying, "Mommy, I'm not going to pee in this bag." Whatever. We got home, and he ate a little bit of a snack. It was about 5pm, and he was starving but didn't want to eat. He needed to go to the bathroom, but he "couldn't" go. And he was so exhausted that he couldn't fall asleep. So he basically just screamed a lot for about an hour and a half. Chet took him to his room and laid down with him. It was 6:30 at this point, and we still had no pee.

At 8:30, Ladan woke up. We thought that surely he'd have something by now, given the amount of water he'd consumed throughout the day. WRONG! He kept saying, "Mommy, I'm not going to pee in this bag."

So I took it off. I got out a third sterile cup, positioned it in the well of his potty seat so that there was no way he'd miss it, and sat him on it. We told him he could have an airplane if we went peepee in the potty.

At 9:20pm, he looked and said, "Mommy, I'm going weebee (his new word--he's had many along the way) in the potty." I could hear it, and it sounded like there would be plenty. He stood up, and you'll never believe it! There was a ton of pee in the potty, but not a single drop had fallen in the cup!!!! Chet said, "Just dump it in and be done with it." So I did.

At 10:00, I was heading out the door to drop off my little boy's pee at the hospital. I couldn't find the entrance to the emergency room (not exactly great signage in my opinion), and the parking lot was totally full (also not ideal when people are experiencing crises). I decided to park across the street and walk. I entered a very busy emergency room where a little boy (probably about 18 months old) was vomiting profusely, and I had to try to figure out what to do with this cup of pee. All I could think about was how I wanted to help the seemingly desperate man with his little boy. I heard something about another guy having chest pains, and sensed an underlying feeling of panic in the emergency room (probably due to the impossibility of getting these people all checked quickly enough that they could be treated in a timely fashion). I was reminded of how grateful I was at that moment to only be in the ER because I was dropping off a cup of pee.

I approached the security desk where there were about 10 men in uniform checking in for their shift. I had to tell them what I had and where I was going. I said, "I have my little boy's pee, and I'm taking it to the lab." They all tried to hide their sly grins, and they kindly directed me to the right, up the elevator to the second floor, to the right, to the left, and down the hall.

I reached the lab at 10:20 to register my kid's pee. Kind of funny. They asked me all the questions they would ask if I were checking him in for a procedure. By 10:50, I was back home again.

When I walked in the door, Chet informed me that Ladan had gone #2 in the potty and had peed quite a bit more. In the next hour and a half, Ladan peed about four more times. All in his own time. I had to laugh as I was trying to get Ladan to go to bed. He kept insisting that he had to go potty some more. He looked up at me from his potty and asked, "Mommy, I'm going to go potty some more. Okay, Phyllis?" This is the first time he's ever said my first name in my presence. He went potty one last time, and went to sleep with his new airplane.

I have no idea what the results of this test will be tomorrow, but at this point, I'm just excited to say that I did accomplish something today... even if it was just getting my kid to pee.