Bad Day 

Today was a bad day. I’m kinda depressed. I was up late with baby screaming last night. She just didnt’ want to go to bed. There was NOTHING wrong with her. When I would walk up to the bassinet, she would look up at me and smile. She was bored and didn’t want to go to bed. (And of course that little smile works on me and all I wanted to do was play with her, but I stayed firm.) Then I decided to let her scream it out… but that got me no sleep. Finally Charley got her and took her downstairs. An hour later he sneaked back into bed and the baby was sound asleep. I blinked and the next thing I knew it was 4:30am. 

I love my job, but I’m not doing as well as I would like. I’m not expecting myself to do perfectly my first week back or remember things I knew when I was working full time and everything was fresh. It’s just frustrating. And I’m tired. Everyone is saying I’ll pick it up again and be fine, and while I agree with them, it still makes it hard right now when I’m used to getting a lot more work done a lot faster.

Plus my breast pump broke while I was at work and my chest has been killing me from not pumping. It turned out that I was just missing a piece (and now it works), but that was hard.

I’m not as good with criticism. I realize I have been in this loving, protective bubble the last four months. Everyone has been wonderful as I’ve worked through grief and hardships with my daughter. But now I have to reenter the real world. I’ve just taken comments to me or about me really personally. At the time they’ll be no big deal and then later I’ll think about it and just wish I was a different person. I’m no good about people not being understanding about my situation too. For instance, I was so upset when this guy at a store wouldn’t ring up my order unless I would hang up my cell phone–a cell phone in my hand on speaker phone NOT up to my ear. I explained that I was on hold with my doctor because my daughter is denied treatment because of some lost paperwork. I had been on hold forever so I didn’t think they would get back on the line during this brief exchange. He said not to talk to him until I was off the cell phone. Did I mention that he didn’t look me in the eye the whole time? He was in the back playing on his computer. I just stood there helpless and then God turned off my phone.. I mean the connection ended up being lost. Good thing too, because I wasn’t going to turn it off. It took 10 seconds for him to help me, tops. (When I was able to call back, my doctor had left for the day!) I was getting keys made for my babysitters who were in the car waiting with my daughter. I started to feel actual tears forming in my eyes before I realized that it was silly, and if this guy wants to be rude, I can take my business elsewhere in the future. That said, don’t shop at O’Brien’s Lock and Key on Alabama and University!

I also have a hard time with receptionists at certain doctor’s offices and certain departments of Children’s hospital. Doctors are nice and therapists are nice and nurses are nice, but receptionists can be really rude. I was telling my aunt that I use the I’m-on-my-cell-phone strategy to avoid rude and evasive receptionist behavior. Here’s one typical conversation that I had with a receptionist yesterday:

Them: “Hello this is (name of hospital).”
Me: “I’m trying to reach (branch of hospital).”
Them: *sigh* “Well you did.”
Me: “My daughter is Laelia Wesley and she’s waiting on some…”
Them interrupting and talking over me: “Appointments are scheduled with me but there isn’t any openings today…”
Me still: “…orthopedic braces that our insurance…”
Them now talking over me louder than they were previously: “…so you’ll have to call back tomorrow for appointments.”
Me: “I just need the status of a fax my insurance is saying they never received from you.”
Them: “Name again?”
Me: “L-a-e-l-i-a W-e-s-l-e-y.”
Them: “We send all our forms to the insurance the same day as the doctor requests.”
Me: “Sorry I’m on my cell phone, you were checking on a fax?”
Them: *longer sigh* *silence*
Me: “Hello?”
Them: ”We sent that on the 22nd.”
Me: “They gave me an authorization number for that.”
Them: (very rude and impatient) “We need THEM to fax us that, we can’t just take anyone’s word that they…”
Me: “Sorry I’m on my cell phone. I was saying the authorization number is 20080120482.”
Them: “We need THEM to fax us this.”
Me: (This is part of their job to call the insurance for this, so I play dumb.) “Do you need the phone number for our insurance?”
Them: “No it’s in the file. We’ll call you back.”
(click)

That above conversation would be more accurate if I included the billion times they put me on hold too. Good grief. I’m still dealing with two (TWO!) lost paperwork issues between Laelia’s doctor and physical therapy AND between her insurance and orthotics. They called today at work to let me know it wasn’t worked out yet and then gave me another number which was a person’s voice mail who hasn’t gotten back to me. Plus they will cancel Laelia’s PT appointment on Tuesday (like they did last week) if they don’t get this worked out “three days before the appointment.”

So today was not a great day for me.

Good Day

Hi, this is baby. I had a great day today! Mommy let me stay up late again and then fed me lots when I woke up. Daddy put me in my swing this morning and I love that! Then Tammi came over and played with me lots and lots. And then fed me lots and lots and lots and lots (I ate 9 ounces!). And I reached down and grabbed my cast and Tammi was happy about that and told my mommy and they both smiled at me and picked me up. Mommy came home sad, but then she held me close and I brightened her whole day.

So today was a super day for me!

Here’s a random video of me playing with my arms. I love that!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 3:43 pm and is filed under baby, coping, video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.