You should probably double-check that.

Even with a background in healthcare, I still have a laundry list of things I have learned the hard way, cringey moments, and times where, in hindsight, I really could have played it smarter than what I did. So here are a few scenarios that will help remind you to run your own quality checks before you do the next thing, hopefully spare you some grief and a whole lot of ugly crying - all to my everlasting embarrassment and shame. You're welcome.

You should probably make sure the oxygen tank is turned ON, and do it BEFORE you leave the house.

When we brought Griffin home from his time in Salt Lake it was overwhelming to try and navigate life with an infant who was on oxygen, had a feeding tube, medications several times throughout the day, and still all the normal baby paraphernalia. Probably the worst of these at this point was dealing with his oxygen. He was still having pretty moderate to severe withdrawals from all the pain medications and sedatives that had to be used during his time in the hospital, he would desaturate immediately if we took the oxygen off for even a moment, and we lived in a two-story house with all the bedrooms upstairs and only one concentrator for home. So, when we would transfer him every night and morning between the two floors we would have to switch him from the concentrator - to the tank - then back to the concentrator to get him up and down the stairs, and we had to do it at lightning speed before his oxygen dropped too low. It also didn't help that they gave us the huge E tanks for this and travel, even though he was only on 1/2 a liter of oxygen (I had no idea about the m-tanks at this point).

If home was this stressful, you can imagine what leaving the house was like. I also had a perpetual and unrelenting fear that we would run out of oxygen while away from home. I was pretty much the poster child for hot mess at this point.

So, when his first follow-up visit with his pediatrician came up in a few days I was already beyond frazzled and working off of little sleep. We started getting ready to go an hour and a half in advance (the office is 15 minutes from the house for perspective) and we methodically got everything switched over, hooked up, and loaded up. We were still 10 minutes late and I was beside myself. My husband, however, was rocking the whole thing like a pro and as if he had done this a million times, with the oxygen tank in one hand, the oximeter and feeding bag slung over his shoulder, and pushing the stroller with his free hand, all cool as a cucumber. I thank God for him every day...ok, most days. The important part was we made it. We started the visit and everything was going smoothly until it was time to check his oxygen saturation. Inexplicably he was saturating at 88% no matter what we did, and what little composure I had left went out the window. We finished the visit discouraged, I was a soppy snotty mess, and went home.

My husband has taken over completely at this point and gets the baby and all gear into the house, and beginnings getting everything switched back. He changes the oxygen from the tank we were using back to the concentrator when I hear, "BABE!" I come running into the living room wondering to myself what else could go wrong today, and my husband announces "the oxygen tank was never turned on."

*Insert very long, horrified pause.*

Silver lining - it's pretty good he was able to maintain 88% on his own at the point. Not so great was sending a MyChart message to his doctor explaining the previously inexplicable and worrisome problem was not a problem at all but parental user error.

I swore I had triple-checked that stupid tank.

Moral: quadruple check that the tank is turned on, and watch out for the oxygen ghost in your house. They can't be trusted.

Make sure the feeding tube is not stuck in the couch or highchair BEFORE you stand up.

I'm going to start out by telling you to do yourself a favor now and buy the tubie pockets you can find on Amazon or Etsy, they will spare you, I promise.

It was NG tube change day and Griffin's feeding therapist was coming for her weekly visit. I always like to give him as much of a break as possible when it's a day we have to change it, so I took it out and we went about our business, gloriously tube free until his therapist got to the house. At the last minute, I placed a new one, which at this point always left me feeling a bit frazzled by the end between his understandable meltdown while placing it and my second-guessing myself on if I did it right and had it in the exact spot. His therapist shows up and Griffin was not interested (as per usual) so I thought maybe a diaper change would help. I stood up without thinking and took off for the changing table when simultaneously I feel quite a bit of tension holding us back and then Griffin shaking uncontrollably with his mouth open in that silent scream that has yet to come out because he's still working up to it.

To my horror and under witness of one of his medical professionals: I had stupidly (and that is really not strong enough of a word) not thought about the NG tube dangling between my thigh and the couch, and just stood up without checking to see if it had notoriously lodged itself in the cracks of the recliner, yanking it clean out of his nose before I could stop the impending disaster. Now we are both sobbing, his poor therapist is trying to console and reassure me it happens to everyone and Griffin will be ok, and I feel like the worst parent on the planet.

Sad to say, this happened a couple more times in a few different locations and scenarios before it was permanently drilled into my head.

Lesson: always check for where the NG tube is hanging out before you even think about moving. Your life is now a game of Simon Says...or did Simon say? Where is Simon?!?!? Oh, and just buy the tubie pockets.

You are not superman, DON'T try to change the feeding tube by yourself with an infant who is just not gonna have it today. Especially if you're new to it.

I think this one stands on its own, but in case you need a visual picture:

Griffin is throwing his head around, flailing his arms, and grabbing at anything he can find to deter my mission, while I am trying to hold him still, keep his hands out of the way, place a tube down his nose and secure it to his face with three different things required to make sure it stays put. Oh, and I have to keep everything as pet hair-free as possible and clean while I use the 10 hands I don't have to simultaneously accomplish this.

There are no words for all the emotions and how ready I was to take the slow boat to China by the end of it.

Do yourself a favor, just don't try to single-handedly win this one.

Make sure you have enough diapers - you never know when a store is not going to carry them and you will be completely out of luck.

We had to stay in Seattle for 3 days after Griffin's initial discharge from the hospital before they would release us to go home. We had an extended stay, my good friend had flown out to help me fly back with Griffin the next day, and my husband and older son took off in the car the night before to head home and meet us there.

Stupidly, I had assumed the 5 diapers I had left would last through the night until my mom got there in the morning. I was incorrect in my assumption.

So there I was, Griffin has soiled his last diaper and is making sure I know he wants it changed 10 minutes ago, I have no more diapers, no car, and am in the recesses of Seattle's shady neighborhoods alone with a 4-week old baby and my girlfriend. My only hope is the upscale grocery store across the street. (Seattle is a weird place. You can be on one side of the street which resembles an urban version of the land that time forgot, and then cross it to find out how the other-half live.)

I muster all my courage and best mean-mug, leave Griffin with my friend in the hotel room, and take off on foot for the store. Oh, and it's raining, and I don't have a coat or umbrella. The whole situation is just great.

I make it to said "grocery store" and proceed to race around trying to find the diapers or anything to save this debacle of a situation until my mom gets there with a pack of diapers. I can't find the diapers despite circling the store 3 times so I track down an employee and ask them.

"Oh, I'm sorry ma'am, we don't have any of that here."

What the f*****k?!?!?! (Sorry, but that was my first thought.)

"But you have a pharmacy section, why would you not have diapers?"

"Well ma'am, we are a store that is all about being environmentally friendly. Disposable diapers are not environmentally friendly."

No shit Sherlock, you condescending old bat. (Again, not one of my finer moments of internal dialogue.)

There are no words for the instantaneous rage I have now been thrown into in my turbulent postpartum brain. Luckily, I have enough dignity left to just walk away without saying anything, keeping my indignation to myself.

I stomp back to the hotel room empty-handed and with all the ire of a poked rattlesnake.

However, by the grace of God, my wonderful friend who had already saved the day and my fragile mental state had thought to stuff Griffin's diaper with my pads, saving us from an irate newborn until my mom got there with a pack of diapers.

Could all of this have been prevented with a bit of planning and forethought? Probably. Spare yourselves and avoid possible jail time.

Make sure your feeding tube ACTUALLY works before placing it.

As you can tell by now, life with a feeding tube is a pain in the ass, to put it bluntly.

True story: I once tried placing a feeding tube in my poor baby 5 times before I called home health in a puddle of tears, pleading for a nurse to come and help. I had previously already had one debacle where I placed the tube but could not get any return, and that landed us in the ER for an x-ray so it was not only frustrating and horrible to make my baby so upset, but embarrassing that I was still struggling with this. I was not feeling the confidence at this juncture, needless to say.

Unfortunately, it was not until after I made the call and our wonderful nurse was on her way that I thought to check the tube itself. I filled a syringe, hung it over the sink and tried pushing water through it.

Nothing. Nothing came out at all. In fact, I couldn't even push the plunger on the syringe. Manufacturer defect, not user error. For once. Thank God.

Unfortunately, I still had a really upset 7-month-old, which I still felt horribly guilty about, and could not stop crying.

Check the tube before you place it.

Oh, and the ER visit I mentioned? I had placed it perfectly, I just couldn't get a return because it was up against the stomach wall despite my best effort to get it away from there. But better safe than sorry.

Make sure you pay attention to the rate vs dose feature on your feeding pump BEFORE you try running it overnight.

I woke up one night halfway through the night to refill Griffin's feeding bag, only to find the bag was still full....

In the dark, as silently as I could (which was not silent at all) I frantically pressed buttons trying to solve this disaster. Anyone who is trying to bulk up a sick baby knows that 3 hours of lost nutrition is not a good thing, and I could not figure out what the h**l was going on!

My husband steps in at this point, and he also cannot figure out the stupid machine. We are now both half asleep, blindly pressing buttons, we may or may not be whisper-yelling at one another like that's going to solve the problem, and I'm crying. I seem to cry a lot these days while managing disaster control; it's annoying.

Anyhoo...after what felt like a hours struggle we finally figured out the rate vs dose feature. We had set the rate correctly, but the dose was still only set to .1 ml. So he hadn't gotten any food. Insert *Face palm and more crying*.

Moral: Keep your instruction manual by the bed and check these things before you have to do it in a zombie-like state.

Make sure you've got something to secure your kid's feeding tube and keep it out of their grasp as much as possible BEFORE bedtime.

One time, I woke up out of a sound sleep to the most horrible and unfamiliar cry I had ever heard come out of Griffin. I flew out of bed in a panic (luckily he was still sleeping bedside in our room) and found him with the feeding tube in his tiny hand, yanked half way out of his nose.

Luckily I am more of a fight than flight person, so I instantly shut off the pump while simultaneously pulling out the NG tube the rest of the way. But I learned then to find a way to secure it as best as possible at bedtime so sleepy hands don't decide to grab onto that instead of the blanket.

Helpful tip: we roll a blanket up and place it at the head of his crib, then run his feeding tube and oxygen tubing underneath it and up the side of the crib so it is as taught as possible and less likely to be an easy or accidental grab.

Make a checklist or divy the medications up in baskets.

I was so proud of myself with the med sheet I had made when we got home from the hospital, and the plan to have a whole bunch of alarms to go off at med and feeding times. I thought for sure this plan was fool proof. Until I had so much to keep track of and double check that I would second guess myself if I gave that 2 o clock round of medications, or did I remember to draw up the medications that have to be stored in the fridge? This was when I learned that baskets with time labels and a physical check off sheet were better options. You don't have to wonder if you did it or not.

Make sure you label each individual medication in it's syringe BEFORE you walk away.

I thought I now had a flawless system with the medications, accept then I learned it's a good idea to label the syringes themselves when you've got meds that are the same color, stored the same way, and are only .1 mL difference in dosing, if that. Duh.

I feel like I'm learning to adult all over again...and I need an adultier adult.

Make sure the feeding pump and/or oxygen source is RIGHT BY your child at all times if your house is crazy and/or you live with anyone clumsy.

It's a fact of nature, when you live with or do something day in and day out it becomes second nature - and you will invariable become complacent about it if you're not absolutely intentional about not becoming so. And you'll still probably have a few moments:

Like the time I stupidly started Griffin's feed but did not move the IV stand right next to him like I always did, because we had a "gate" blocking the way into the living room. But then our neurotic lab got freaked out by said "gate" and not being able to get to us like she always can, knocked it over, came ripping into the living room, catches her foot on the tubing, and rips his NG tube clean out of his nose, tape and all coming off his face.

I really cannot tell you how horrified you will be with yourself, how horrible you will feel, and the ugly cry that will uncontrollably ensue if you are not at all times extra super careful, just in case, and something like this happens. It's best to just try and prepare for any and all scenarios you can, rather than assume it will be fine.

So there you have it: the beginnings of my novel about things I have learned the hard way, usually while crying. Go forth empowered and better prepared!