Sleep Study

On Friday, I went with Jonathan to the hospital to complete a Sleep Study on him.  It all happened rather quickly, as they had an immediate opening.  I think it was a blessing as we did not have time to get stressed about it :).  Plus, my mom was in town, so Harvey was able to come up and visit with us for a bit after he put our kids to bed while she babysat (thanks Mom :).  There has been a blog that I have recently found that has lots of information about Down syndrome on it.  Hannah's Shenanigans is wonderful!  Hannah's mom so nicely posted pictures of Hannah's Sleep Studies.  So, after returning from the very sleepy-monotone speaking sleep doctor :) & before returning that night for the study, I showed Jonathan pictures of Hannah.  I think it helped him so much (and me as well) to see what it would look like.  He still was a little hesitant, even after I kept reassuring him that there would no shots and no blood drawn.  What sealed the deal was when I promised him that if he would be a brave boy, I would treat him to pancakes the next morning!  He was excited :).  Above, he is pictured on the hospital bed after we checked in.  He looks a little unsure, but he was still being very agreeable.

This is an overhead shot Harvey took of us while we were waiting for Jonathan to get hooked up.  We took a couple of Veggie Tale movies and it worked out perfectly to keep his mind off of the process :).

Of course, everything is always more fun with Daddy :).

This is while he was getting hooked up, trying to smile, glance at the camera, yet keep his eyes glued on the Veggie Tales :).  The technician was very kind and did a great job of explaining everything to us.

This little box was pretty amazing...and so was the fact that all of the wires were attached to our son!

Here he is all bandaged up, with his stuffed animals to keep him company :).  He was so brave; we were very proud of him!  The bandage around his head was just to keep all of the wires in place all night.  We showed the technician pictures of his siblings.  He told her all of their names and then said that they were his friends.  After he was all hooked up and Harvey was kissing him good night, he looked at Harvey and asked if his "friends" were coming to see him :).  Harvey said they could not because they were too young to visit in the hospital (because of the flu going around).  I thought it was sweet that he missed his sibs and wanted them to come see him.  Incidentally, the next morning when we returned and I told them that story, they let us know that they had missed us, also.  Sometimes absence really does make the heart grow fonder :).

I am so bummed because I had a great picture of him the next morning in the hospital and at IHOP with a hot cocoa/whipped cream mustache...but he deleted them when he was looking back at the pics!  So, that afternoon when we got home, I took this picture of him.  Removing all of the wires, glue, & tape was not that bad at all, thankfully, even though he has a pretty sensitive scalp. 

The technician told us the next morning that if all of her patients were as great as he was, her job would be easy! After I got him cleaned up and we were packing up our suitcase, he looked at me, pointed to the cot where I had slept in in the room (well, actually, I did not really sleep too much but that is another story :), looked back at me and said, "Mommy, thanks for sleeping on that bed.  With me.  Last night in this room.  Thank you."  I love that sweet boy.  I love all of my children, of course.  When moments of that kind of gratitude come with any of them, they just make my mommy heart swell :).