Poor Baby

Before her big 12-month old appointment, Juliet has to have her blood tested for lead and iron levels. When we received this information at her 9-month appointment, we (Nana and I) decided to bite the bullet and get it over with. After poking around in both of her arms for a bit, the tech called it quits and decided he wasn't going to be able to find her vein. THEN he told me that there is a pediatric nurse at the lab across the street who is skilled at drawing blood from the wee ones. Ugh. Luckily J took it like a champ and just watched what was being done to her without crying; just lots of squirming, looking utterly perplexed.
It only took me three months to muster up the wherewithal to try again. This time we went to the other lab and after multiple pokes, the new tech, with the help of the nurse, finally hit the spot. This time I wasn't so lucky with Juliet's reaction (not that I blame her). About half way into arm #1, she lost it and started screaming and crying. Not one to let anybody cry alone, I too started crying (I didn't think I could get away with screaming, though). I was a bit of a mess and didn't fully recover until we were safely out of the chair and sitting in the post-poke area. By this time, Juliet had calmed down and I was able to pull it together. I am a wuss. Being such a wreck definitely had me thinking of all of the parents who go through taking their children for surgery or other serious, scary procedures. After the ordeal, the poor bug looked like a little junkie with huge bruises on the insides of both of her elbows. She slept in the car all the way down to Nana's afterward and in my arms once we arrived for a total of about two hours. The experience definitely wore her out. Now we are just praying that the results come back showing that she is healthy. I am not worried about the iron, but living in an Edwardian makes a Mama nervous about lead poisoning. We really need to go around and touch up paint around here.
As much of a relief as it is that we will have what will hopefully be good news, I have to confess that I felt bad for J when Molly admitted to me that she was always too chicken to take her kids for the blood draw. It didn't occur to me that chickening out was an option, otherwise I probably would have! Sorry, Booga. :(
We spent the rest of the day at the pool with Nana. The idea was that I would get some work done (ha ha, I probably got about 30 minutes worth of work done the entire day). I am beginning to think that a life of leisure is the life for me.