Who was that little girl.....

in the body of my Maggie last night? I didn't recognize her! I can't begin to tell you how positive the experience was with the sleep study last night.

Of course, there are always some delays in any appointment and last night was no different. We were told to be there @ 6pm for the study to start @ 7pm. They had 3 little ones to test that night and they were all running around in the play area having fun, while the parents chit-chatted @ what was going on with each child. They didn't bring us back to the lab until 7:30pm. Each family was given a fairly large room - the accommodations were very nice. Maggie immediately jumped up into her big bed, asked for her baba and seemed to be ready to go to sleep. Oh if it were only that easy! The tech told us to get comfortable and they'd be back @ 9pm (Maggie's normal bedtime) to get started. So, we got ready for night night and we put in Finding Nemo (her favorite!) I was MORE than happy to know that they had a DVD player. I seriously doubt that our evening would have gone as well as it had, if it hadn't been there.

9pm came and we got started. The techs were great. The one guy setting Maggie up was really good to show her how nothing was going to hurt, and even let her play with sticking the wires on him. She wasn't too sure about the long leads/wires on her legs, but once those were on and she could sit back down and watch Nemo she was ok. Then they measured her head, put all kinds of goopy sticky stuff all over her head and began to hook her up. There were wires everywhere. I was pretty amazed at how much was involved. There were also monitors on her chest for heart, a pulse ox on her finger (which she actually thought was very cool because it had a light on it) and some straps around her chest. The only thing that really bothered her were the 2 nasal cannulas/monitors placed in her nostrils and right under her nose. She cried for just a minute, tried to pull them out, but then seemed ok with it. They topped it all over with a stocking over her head to keep all the wires in place, and bunch of tape over that.

Here are a few pictures of all the tape, goop and wires that were used - just a few, don't you think?



There are a few questions they ask at the end to make sure that all the sensors are reading properly, etc. They asked Maggie to keep her eyes closed for 1 minute. I thought to myself, are you kidding me? But she did it. They told her to follow my finger from right to left, up and down without moving her head. She did it. They asked her to breathe just through her nose. She did it. And now just through her mouth. She did it. They asked her to move her right foot and then her left foot...and she did it. WHAT?! I was shocked! What a brave sweet little girl I have!

The 3 hours prior to the study actually starting, I was praying my heart out. Please Lord, let her be calm. Let this disruption not upset her. Let her behave (PLEASE!). Please no tantrums. If I'm honest, alot of the praying was so that it would be easier for me to deal with her. How selfish is that? Maggie is a VERY active, non-stop little girl. I have NEVER seen her sit still for an hour and a half, even to watch her favorite movie...let alone while people are bothering her. I don't know what came over my sweet child, but I was so thankful. And then I felt so badly for not having more confidence in her and for feeling so selfish. I knew that she was going to be just fine. The testing isn't painful but I just didn't think she would respond as well as she did. I can only say that Jesus was present in that room last night and there was a peace over Maggie's little body that I've never seen on her before. I was so thankful.

She fell asleep around 10:15 and she was woken up at 6:40 this morning. She usually goes to bed around 9 and wakes up around 8. So she definitely didn't get her hours in. However, her sleeping pattern was pretty much the same. I kept thinking, I sure hope this isn't like one of those times when you hear something in your car & when you finally take it in to the shop, nothing can be found. I kept thinking...watch us go through all of this and she doesn't wake up in the middle of the night, doesn't move, doesn't make any noises or cry out...but that wasn't the case. She had a typical night of rest. She wakes up about 4 - 5 times in the night, cries out for me or her bottle, and goes back to sleep. Evidence that she is not sleeping soundly or getting into a deep sleep. I don't think that she still has sleep apnea. I really do believe that the TNA surgery back in October corrected all of that. However, it's customary to test again after surgery and we wanted to make sure that we got it checked out. We should have the test results on Monday and we'll go from there.

I don't know how anyone can sleep with all of this...but she did it...with the help of her baba (bottle), boppie (pacifier), her favorite puppy from Nana & Nemo on the tv. I am one proud Momma!


Thanks for all your prayers, for my sweet angel & especially her Momma :)

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