Wires and stickers

Well, last night was Nicole's sleep study. We arrived at the clinic a little before 9pm and the tech introduced himself and got Nicole hooked up to all her "fun" little wires. She even got to play with some (that weren't attached to her, of course). I was impressed with the organization and strategy of wire placement the tech had to keep "little hands" from creating complications. Nicole got to sport this fancy "headband" to keep her from noticing all the leads on her head (although that band was the only thing she really did try to pull off).


Nicole did awesome with the set-up and even seemed like she had a little bit of fun. She even tried to stick on the surplus stickers and wires the tech gave her to play with.
After the tech placed about 22 wires (with two more under her nose yet to come), he wheeled in her "test crib." Nicole thought the bed (or play area as she perceived it) was pretty cool, and she even decided to pose for me showing off all the nifty wires and bands:


"Mommy, don't forget the cool toe piece!"


As if the wires and such weren't enough, I still needed to put her brace on for the night. She humored me, but gave me this look like, "how much more are we going to have to do here?"


Still she had her bear and "bee-bee" (binky) to help her feel (more) comfortable.


The hardest part of the night was getting her to sleep. After getting her all situated, I could see in her expression that she was starting to put 2 and 2 together and that she was somehow supposed to sleep with all this stuff on. We read a few books, but then she just started crying. I would have gladly just snuggled her to sleep, but with all those wires, her brace, and the box the wires were connected to, it wasn't going to happen. So, I held her as comfortably as I could and just rocked her while the tech came in and out a couple of times. She finally passed out enough to where I could lay her down. Thankfully, she more or less slept the rest of the night.

The weirdest part of the night was knowing I was sleeping in a room monitored by video, with a tech that would come in at any moment several times during the night to add/adjust wires. I also slept in a bed with a plastic mattress cover (for younger kids who come take the test) that crinkled with every motion, and a pillow that wasn't uncomfortable, but felt very odd. It wasn't bad, but with all that, and worrying about how well Nicole would do, I felt a little restless. I am just glad she was too tired to care!

We were woken up at 6:30 so the tech could remove wires and wrap things up so we could go. I was tempted to ask if we could just unhook her and let us sleep longer, but they don't really do that (probably so the techs can also go home and get sleep). Nicole looked a little less than thrilled to see the tech at first, but quickly cheered up and started jabbering as she realized she was being set free. After that we just had to get up and out the door. Since Nicole still had a lot of stickers on her, I had to wait for home and a tubby to take them off, but I took a picture of them before we left (she looks mad in this shot because I set her down and wasn't showing her the picture I was taking right that moment!):


This is how we both felt on the ride home:


Now we're home and happy to be here! We're so relieved to know the test went successfully! Now we just wait for the results...