I am a difficult mother. I don’t try to be. It just kind of happened.
Let’s go back sixteen months. My daughter Annabelle was born. I delivered in a hospital with a midwife and an entire staff of doctors overseeing my birth. Ten hours later my daughter was placed upon my stomach and I nursed her for the first time. For the remainder of our stay in the hospital, a very tired version of her mother lay holding her, accompanying her to her first bath, all tests, and sleeping with her each and every night. I didn’t let my daughter leave my sight. Yes, I trusted many of the nurses who cared for me, my husband, and my new baby. I do, however, remember one nurse who not only was curt with me and my husband but who was less than gentle with my daughter while demonstrating how to swaddle her.
Being an advocate for my daughter has been an ongoing challenge since her birth. Making decisions about whether or not to give her antibiotics for ear infections (that quickly come and go), whether or not to vaccinate, whether to breastfeed, pump and supplement with formula, and how to put our dear one to bed at night are complicated by what I and my husband believe in, what society says, what our pediatrician and his office recommend, not to mention what friends and family think we should do. There’s a lot to consider.
Early on, Annabelle had jaundice. The pediatrician recommended that I stop breastfeeding and instead feed my 3 day old baby formula. The doctor expressed fear that my baby had “breast milk jaundice.” Click here to read Kellymom.com’s handout on breast milk jaundice. Thankfully I was reading the La Leche League’s Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, which helped me stay confident that I was doing the right thing by nursing my baby and helping her to gain weight and work the bilirubin out of her system. Within two days, she was in the clear.
Fast forward to Annabelle’s first stomach flu. At the pediatrician’s office, his friendly but perhaps misinformed medical assistants insisted that I stop nursing since my daughter was sick and I too was coming down with the flu. My breast milk was apparently “tainted.” I confronted my pediatrician who I am happy to say agreed with me that nursing my baby through her illness was the right thing to do. To read more about nursing a sick child to wellness, click here.
I wondered if perhaps I was the motivating factor for the way my child and I were treated. My husband and I are both young parents amidst the well educated and affluent community that makes up suburban Washington, D.C. I was twenty-five and still in graduate school when I gave birth to Annabelle. My husband was thirty. While we both are well educated, age sometimes influences the way we and our daughter are treated by medical professionals.
I often feel timid because of my age. While I know a thing or two about nursing, soothing a crying baby, grocery shopping with a baby inside a heavy car seat, and navigating most terrains with a baby stroller or with my baby bundled up in a carrier, I tend to forget how valuable my experience(s) as a parent are. And it’s not like there are any badges or certificates out there for parents to list or wear that prove that even though I don’t have any gray strands in my hair, I do know what I’m doing, and yes, I am intelligent.
So we left our first pediatrician. We tried another pediatrician. Now we are on pediatrician #3, a practice that I have high hopes for. I drove at least twenty miles to get to the new office, waited about two minutes, met a friendly nurse who asked me if I wanted to be addressed as Mrs. M–, and then was pleasantly surprised when a young and pregnant doctor walked in, sat down, and made eye contact with me. She spent the entire visit talking to my daughter, playing with her through the examination, and asked me more than once if I had any other questions or concerns. We discussed good prenatal care since I plan to becomce pregnant sometime in the coming year, and she recommended a midwifery practice!
Working as my child’s advocate is no small job. Wherever and with whomever my child interacts, my husband and I will need to be the older sets of eyes making sure that she is treated well, that she treats others with respect, and that she gets a good confident start in life. And even though I am at my wit’s end when she is throwing her tantrums, I have high hopes that my daughter will find strength in her challenges, and if need be, will become a difficult woman who is not afraid to disagree with those in positions of authority (including her mom and dad).
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