Ear Impressions.

First ear impressions were done today. And I was flying solo.

The process is like this: they stick a super small piece of foam on a string into the ear canal. It's basically like an ear tampon. Anyway, they stick that into the ear, push it in using a special tool, check that it's in far enough and the squeeze in the impression goo. Once that's in it has to set for about seven minutes or so - meanwhile keeping baby's hand out of it - and then it can be removed.

Since I knew that the audiologist I'm not a fan of wanted to try for some frequencies again today I kept O hungry and sleep deprived. Since he was pretty chill when we got there I decided to save the bottle and let him try. I tucked O's arms into the moby wrap I was wearing him in and snuggled him close while the audiologist started.

Annnnd then a major meltdown happened, because who likes having stuff shoved into their ear?

Luckily my hungry little one settled right down for his bottle and the first round of goo inserted.

Then we waited. And the audiologist complained that he didn't think it was in far enough. And we waited some more. And he complained some more about thinking he would need to redo it. And his assistant told him to think happy thoughts. And we waited some more. And the finally it came out and... It was good!

Time for ear number two. I had saved some of the bottle so as soon as the meltdown started I gave him the bottle and he settled. Tampon inserted. Goo inserted. 

Sleeping while the goo sets.

Wait. Complain. Wait. Remove.

And he wasn't happy with it. Insert another tampon. Try to settle the baby. Adjust the tampon. Insert the goo. Wait. Wait. Remove. This time it was good.

Thankfully.

We then go to repeat the Tymps test. Right ear was good, left ear showed some possible fluid.

Since at this point O was still sleeping the audiologist brought us to a third room and again started to try testing a few frequencies he wanted to "be sure of".

All of the electrode things were attached.  The ear pieces inserted.

But my sweet boy had other plans. About 20 minutes in he woke up with a big smile, and that was it.

Our SLP came in to chat at this point and that was it.

The takeaway from this appointment: always bring a moby wrap.