Tuesday 9 July 2013

Listen to yourself - and glad I did!

Following on with my Ultimate Blog Challenge, one of the suggestions for today was

Listen To Yourself! (Contributed by Melanie Kissell, http://melaniekissell.com)
Describe a moment when you ignored your intuition. What happened? 
Or... I told you so! Write about a time you felt validated.
Well I decided to go with a time I was validated, it is a time that will stay with me forever, and I am glad I listened to my instinct or the outcome could have been very very different.

I shall try and set the scene for you, I had just given birth to my second daughter, the first was eighteen months old. Back in these days I had no washing machine, so everything was hand washed. I used proper nappies as did everybody was back in 1980, and these were boiled in a jam preserving pan and then rinsed through in the sink, rung out best I could and hung out on the balcony - we lived in a top floor flat.

My daughter was born nearly four weeks early and weighed a nice healthy seven pounds. She tended to vomit slightly after her feeds in hospital, but nothing excessive and at five days ( as was normal at the time with a second child) we were discharged.

Now from about a week old the vomiting got more regular, and so she went to the GP who could find nothing wrong. I took her to the baby clinic, who said all was ok. By 3 weeks old she was vomiting after every feed, so she was put onto a bottle to measure how much she was taking. By now she was losing weight, and crying a lot of the time, still nothing wrong as far as the experts were concerned. So we changed the brand of formula, but no luck, we stopped sterilising and boiled her bottles instead in case it was the sterilising solution, but still she vomited.

By now she was losing more weight and crying more of the time. I had got to the stage I did not even hold her to feed her, I stripped her all apart from her nappy, propped her up in the baby bath, and sat on the couch next to her to feed her. I did not lift her after her feed, I did not wind her, I did not move her, ut still she vomited.

By now she was nearly five weeks old, I was exhausted, I was getting no sleep cos this baby just would not stop crying, I was trying to cope with a toddler, housework, life etc. I spent so much time washing as she never stopped being sick.

She was back the GP nearly every day, baby clinic twice a week, and by this I was labelled as a paranoid mother, nothing wrong with the baby, its you that making her like this.

Well this one Saturday night I had had enough, I had reached breaking point, and I just wanted her to stop crying, cry, cry, cry, none stop, day and night. I had hold of a cushion and was going to use it to shut her up, I could not take anymore. Hubby by this point was just as exhausted, he had had to give up his driving job as he was not safe behind the wheel of a lorry. No paternal leave in those days!! By now she weighted three and a half pounds. Surely enough to start their alarm bells ringing, but no.

So instead of suffocating her, I phoned my GP and requested a house visit. He reluctantly came out telling me there was nothing wrong with her, nothing he could do, and made me feel like the worst mother that ever existed. He came out and checked her again and said there was nothing wrong. At this stage I told him I really didnt care what he did with her, take her home to the wife, phone the social work and find her foster parents, but just take her away before I kill her. I was so so tired, I could no longer think straight but I knew something was not right.

Had she been a first child I may have listened more to them, but this was not normal. He agree to admit her to hospital that night, only to shut me up. Phoned the hospital and said there was nothing wrong with the baby it was a paranoid mother.

After admitting her the hospital said she had severe dehydration and would have been dead within six hours. Turned out she had something called a pyloric stenosis. But as my GP had never seen a case of this before he had no idea about it, and as it only usually happens in first born children and sons then she did not fit  the criteria.

She had an operation a few days later which solved the vomiting problem.

I would say I was validated!!



4 comments:

  1. I feel for you deeply. My sister went through a situation with her second child (daughter) where the baby was constantly getting a fever.

    After countless attempts to reach the doctor, she was told to go home and contact the doctor after the weekend.

    Years later the child shows signs of being "slow" and now is considered mentally retarded as the fever did damage to the brain.

    Try suing the doctor over that case! :(

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    Replies
    1. yes more doctors need to listen to parents, we know our kids best!!

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  2. Wow, what a hugely stressful thing to happen. Thank goodness she is OK, Thanks for sharing, you are indeed completely validated.

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  3. I am so glad that you forced them to listen to you and that all turned out well. Praise God!!

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