Singing the O2 Blues

Well we had our sleep study. Audrey took it like a champ but it was a long night for mama! Lets talk a little bit about the sleep study.

After we checked in, they showed us into a room about the size of a jail cell. I've never been to jail but in my mind it looks a lot like this.

        Mommy Jail                 Baby Jail

I fed Audrey and got her into her jammies and sleep sack. Now that she was ready for bed the next step was getting her all hooked up. The amazingly awesome sleep tech, who we'll refer to as BAMF, attached about ten little electrodes to her head. The electrodes were attached with a putty that gets sticky when warmed. To make sure that the electrodes stay put BAMF then wraped the whole shebang in gauze. Audrey was not a fan. She does not appreciate things on her head. By "she does not appreciate" I mean she screams like a banshee when you so much as put a hat on her. There was also a sensor on her neck and another one on the back of her shoulder. THEN, yes there's more, there was a belt around her chest and a belt around her little pot belly. Those monitored the rise and fall of her abdomen while. Finally it was time for our nightly Mommy and Audrey sing-a-long. I sing Audrey to sleep every night. I'm not sure why it works, I just know it does. I assure you it's not on account of my beautiful singing voice. For whatever reason though, it calms her. Tonight though, I had an audience. Sleep studies are filmed. Visual and Audio...It was a live concert ya'll. I killed it.

Once she was asleep we put on the final piece of equipment. Yes, MORE. This friends is a nasal cannula. It is basically a torture device designed to piss off babies and keep mommies up to the wee hours of the night. It monitored air pressure as air went in and out of her nose and mouth. She was not a fan. Between that and the mummy hat she was miserable. For the first few hours she fussed every fifteen to twenty minutes. I was terrified of her waking up so I would run over and shove a pacifier in her mouth until she calmed down. She never did wake up.

Between the pacifier shoving and the most uncomfortable "bed" in the world I only got about three hours of sleep. Audrey didn't sleep much better. We got a call a few days later from Dr. Wilson and he confirmed my suspicions. Audrey sucks at sleep. I don't remember her specific numbers but they were bad. Real bad. Dr. Wilson wants to try putting Audrey on just a touch of oxygen at night. Sounds harmless. It's not. It means dealing with that stupid cannula. Every. Fucking. Night. At this point I'm not confident that Audrey's actually getting much oxygen and I'm definitely not getting much sleep. Lets just hope in a month I'm reading this with a sense of humor because this nightmare is behind us. Fingers crossed.