A post to embarrass Luca when she is older

I tried to think of a title for this post that would not get weird people searching on the internet ending up here.  I tried to keep "pee" out of the title, but that is pretty much the topic of this post.  (If you are grossed out about pee, avert your eyes and come back tomorrow for a non-pee related post.)

Luca had a check-up and labs with her transplant team on Monday.  After mentioning a couple new (minor) things that I was concerned about, they added some labs for her next lab draw, put her on antibiotics for a sinus infection to hopefully clear up this persistent congestion she has had for over 5 weeks, and ordered a urinalysis.

I was dreading the urinalysis.  I know what you are thinking - what's the big deal?  I probably have not told you that Luca has a talent at avoiding giving urine when it is needed.  She has had to wear one of those bags over a dozen times in her life and want to guess how many times it has worked?  Zero.  Every single time, even as a baby, her NICU team would be amazed that she would manage to avoid getting even a drop into the bag.  And it has led to her needing to be cath'ed for urine samples more times than I could count.

And when she has to have a cath the nurses are amazed that she avoids getting pee where they expect her to.  Once in the ER, I warned the two nurses to be prepared for it to not work and to stand back because she gets angry and you will end up with urine on you instead of in the cup.  They kind of gave me a yeah, yeah, yeah answer and knowing my daughter, I stood back and watched from the end of the stretcher.  I knew what was going to happen before they started.  Sure enough, one of the nurses ended up with urine in her hair and all over her arms and clothes.  After they were done trying, she turned and shook her head and said, "well, you did warn me" and when I apologized she said that at least it was only urine.

So imagine my response when they gave me two mini cups to try to get her to pee in.  I was really dreading it.  But home we came and yesterday I attempted to trick her into giving me some freaking pee.

And you know what my amazing child did?  SHE PEED IN THE CUP WITHIN 15 SECONDS OF ME TELLING HER TO!  Not one drop went outside of that cup.  It was probably a total fluke that she listened to me and we succeeded.  She was so proud of herself, clapping wildly.  I closed the lid and placed it in a ziplock bag.  She insisted on carrying it herself.  When we got to the lab and I filled out the necessary paperwork, I turned around to see her shaking the baggy with the pee in it, all excitedly showing everyone in the waiting area what she had accomplished.  Luckily, everyone thought it was funny.  I was pretty mortified.  I handed it over like it was gold and said "please take good care of this because if you need another sample, it likely won't happen again."

Life with a toddler.  Always such gross fun.