Brady John: Mr. Particular

If there’s one way that Brady was not like his daddy, it was in his particularities.  Jeff is pretty chill about most things.  And I’m particular, so we can say that this is probably my contribution to our little man.  Sorry, little buddy.

Once again, I’m so grateful that we had the amazing nurses that we did.  They spent so much time with him, and always filled me in on the funny and particular things they noticed about Brady.  I remember coming in one morning for my normal visit, and getting a rundown immediately from Diane on Brady’s most recent likes and dislikes.

Tiny premature babies are neurologically very sensitive.  Because of that, we tried to protect Brady from light and sound when possible.  Being not even 27 weeks gestation when he was born, Brady shouldn’t have had to worry about any of those stimuli until MUCH later.  Little man was a total trooper though!  But, back to protecting him from light again.  For the most part, we kept his eyes covered with a soft fabric eye mask.  You know about the eye mask, and how we found that perfect matching fabric for Brady’s chest (and if you don’t, you can read about it here!)  Well, Brady wasn’t always a fan of having his eyes covered.  He was always swatting at it and moving it around.  One day, Jeff and I were just sitting there, looking at Brady, when all of a sudden, we saw his little fingers scoop under his eye mask.  After he worked his hands underneath the mask, he pushed his hands down, and the mask when with it.  I got a couple of pictures of him doing it – and I only wish I would have gotten it on video.  We couldn’t believe that a little guy could pull that off.  It seemed so coordinated!

Another thing that Brady had a major issue with was wet diapers.  Typically, “cares” (diaper changes, temperature and blood pressure readings, etc.) are done every 4 hours.  However, the nurses noticed that Brady would get very agitated when his diaper was wet.  His heart rate would increase and he’d get wiggly.  Once they’d change his diaper, his readings would come back down to normal and he’d relax.  I remember calling one night to talk to his night nurse, Anna.  After she exclaimed how cute Brady was a couple of times, she told me she’d had to change his diaper outside of normal cares twice.  Little man just didn’t like that wet feeling!

Brady was also preferential towards which side he was laying on.  He liked laying on his left side, and didn’t care as much for laying on his right side.  When he was laying on his left side, he looked outwards, towards the hallway.  The nurses speculated that he just always liked knowing what was going on.  Unfortunately for Brady, babies need to lay on both sides evenly.  To work around this, the nurses would lay him on his right side right after he received his sedation medications so he’d be more relaxed, and then turn him to his favorite side when the medications were wearing off.

The nurses and doctors always said that Brady was the boss.  He tells them what he needs, and they do it.  In the 2 weeks he spent with us, he sure kept us all on his toes.  I’ve never been more happy to cater to anyone’s every whim than I was for our sweet Brady John.