Yesterday was a very busy day doing newborn hearing screenings for the two different hospitals I work for. I finished the first hospital and when I got to the second hospital there were a lot of babies that needed to be screened “right away”. The nurses kept asking me “have you screened so-and-so?” or “did so-and-so pass the hearing screening?”. In the three (or four?) years I’ve been doing newborn hearing screenings, I have never had so many nurses come after me about so many babies. It made for a very stressful morning (since I like to keep everyone happy).

I think the babies knew I was in a hurry because they were very fussy! I usually finish around 10:30, which is nice since there is an 11:00 church service at my church, however, yesterday at 10:30 I still had 4 babies left AND I got a phone call from the first hospital asking me to come back and retest a baby before they discharged. I told the nurse I could probably be there around 11:00 and she said that would be great. When I finished screening all the fussy babies, doing the billing and charting it was 11:00. So instead of calling the hospital to tell them I was on my way I just decided to “hurry”.

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Today was a crazy day with the babies! (In case you don’t know I am a speech aide at a local hospital and part of my job description is to help with newborn hearing screenings.) When I tell someone that I work with babies their usual response is “what a fun job” (or something along those lines). Well…I would just like to say that some days it’s not fun at all and can be very stressful!

The test we do is very sensitive to noise so if a baby is screaming, crying, fussing, snorting, or moving it takes longer to get them to pass. Lately it seems like every baby I try to test does not understand this. I will bring a perfectly quiet baby into the room and they will start crying or moving before I even touch them.

The other day I got a baby from the mom’s room and the dad said “this is the most peaceful he’s been today” and I thought “good I have been waiting for a cooperative baby.” And sure enough, the minute I wheeled him into the screening room he started crying and threw up (luckily not all over me) and was inconsolable. After several minutes of trying to calm the baby down I finally asked the dad to take him back to mom. The next couple babies I tried to test were the same way (except none of them threw up). I’m starting to wonder if I’m sending a bad vibe to the babies??