There are a lot of things I took for granted before becoming a mother. It's natural to make assumptions, I suppose. The sheer number of things that didn't occur to me back then would be shocking if it weren't for the fact that I think they are a common denominator for most parents. The reality of parenthood is so starkly different than the idea that it's laughable, in both wonderful and challenging ways. And, I think, this is how humanity continues to rush head-long into reproduction. It's a biologically programmed blindness, akin to the way we can (sort-of) forget 24 hours of intense mind-bending natural childbirth and choose to do it again a couple years later.
One of the many things that didn't occur to me was the fact that I would be so crushingly responsible for all the healthcare decisions for each little person who came into my care. Now, before you say "Duh!" let me explain: yes, of course I knew that would be caring for them, taking them to the doctor's, nursing them through illnesses, and so on. But when I thought about these things, I imagined it in fairly straight-forward terms. I would take care of the colds and flus and stomach bugs, and the rest would be managed by my trusted pediatrician. All I had to do was pay attention, follow directions, and remember all my first aid training in case I ever needed to, you know, apply pressure and elevate a wound or something.
But it didn't take long for me to realize that things weren't going to be that simple. Those trusted doctors, even at their best, missed things. They got things wrong. They couldn't explain why Lexi had bloody stools as a newborn--not even the GI "Specialist" in Boston or the Allergy and Lactation Specialist I travelled 45 minutes each way to visit. I had to figure it out myself. They thought it was "no big deal" when the DTaP made her scream for 3 hours straight, spike a fever, and caused her leg to go red hot and swell up like an italian sausage on the grill. They missed her delayed speech and lack of interest in faces. They dismissed Spencer's Celiac Disease as "toddler diarrhea" and never noticed the fact that Lexi was practically blind in her left eye. They shrugged off Ellie's wordlessness since "your kids are just late talkers" and seemed surprised when I informed them that she was, in fact, autistic. I could go on, but you get the idea. These are not bad, insensitive, careless doctors (although I have a few choice words for the Boston GI). They try hard, but they miss things. They can't help it. They're busy and they only have a few minutes with my child. They're not trained to recognize everything, and I'm sure that they see so many parents complaining of phantom illnesses that they get a little dismissive. And so, it falls to me to figure it out. (And don't get me started on the things they've missed for Paulo! Those oversights make me think I should have been a diagnostician!)
And the decision-making is a weighty responsibility. It would have been so much easier to let them make all the decisions, and yet I might have 2 undiagnosed, untreated autistic children (or more if Spencer had been damaged while his gut was leaking), one half-blind daughter, and all three malnourished. Might these issues have been caught eventually? Perhaps, but not early enough to have made the kind of progress we have by catching them young. Not early enough to prevent a lot of damage in those first, formative years.
And so now I take nothing at face value. I question and research every medication and each procedure. I push back, and I worry. I'd rather not have to worry, but I can't help it.
The night before Spencer had his tonsils and adenoids out this week I sat by his bed and listened to his laboured breathing and prayed that I was making the right decision. I was planning to take him into his first surgery, first general anesthesia, first bodily invasion. He was excited and positive, which was good. There was a good chance that having the once-routine procedure would help him finally breath and sleep soundly for the first time in his life, with no gasping for breath, sweating, waking with nightmares. It could improve the ADHD symptoms and strengthen his system. It could help to ensure that he didn't have another 6 months of ear infections this year. Even if it did a couple of these things, it would be worth it, assuming that there were no complications. Beacuse it could also be dangerous. There could be severe bleeding. He could react unexpectedly to the anesthesia, or the codeine, or develop an infection that would require antibiotics, and our choices there have been drastically reduced by his reaction to augmentin in the spring. This would be routine for the doctor, but it wasn't routine for me, or for Spencer. It was a calculated roll of the dice.
And so it is with each decision. They cannot do it for themselves, and the doctors' track records aren't great. They try hard. They do their best. I haven't given up on working with them, but I have accepted that they are incerdibly fallible, and at the end of the day I have to decide what chances are worth taking. I have to push back, ask for more tests when something isn't right, and sometimes say "no" when I feel something isn't safe enough or goes too far.
I'm pretty sure that about half the grey hairs I'm sporting came from carrying the weight of these decisions. I wasn't trained for this, and I know that if I screw up, and I do, they may pay the price.
I kiss their little sleeping heads each night and I pray hard that I can keep them safe. That I can see what I need to see. That I have the courage to trust my gut and the wisdom to use my head. That I don't make any terrible mistakes. But most of all, that they stay healthy and unharmed because there are just no guarantees.