Can I vent for a minute, please?

Dear Father-in-law,

How dare you. When your son calls to tell you how afraid he is that his baby could be autistic, how dare you belittle him and make him feel so small. He called you because this is the same diagnosis that his brother, your other son, has. So he thought you might be understanding for once. Instead of listening, you first had to argue with him and tell him that everything about Brooklyn's development is normal and that everything is fine. Then, when your son tells you, no, her doctors say it's not normal, you get mad and say that it's normal for a baby who has had the medical problems she has had. That you would expect it so why can't we? We just need to deal with it. That we don't know what real problems are. That everything that Brooklyn has had to struggle with her entire little life has never been "anything major."

Then you turn downright ugly and say that if there is something developmentally wrong with our daughter, that it's our fault because we "just strapped her in her carseat or swing and left her all the time" when she was an infant. I'm sorry, but when the hell did this happen?? I seem to remember nearly losing my mind because for months, I would not even put her down so that I could use the bathroom or change my clothes or get something to eat because I could not bear to hear her cry. I recall not sleeping many nights because she would not sleep unless she was being held, and my intense fear of SIDS wouldn't allow me to fall asleep while holding her, and I couldn't even dream of letting her sleep in my bed. Yes, she eventually began sleeping in her carseat, but that's because her doctors told us that was where she needed to sleep because she needed to be elevated.

So please tell me, when the fuck did we EVER just leave her in her carseat or swing and walk away? I still cannot leave her unattended for five seconds. Even when she was asleep in the carseat (on doctor's orders, remember???), she was right beside our bed at night, or right next to wherever we were sitting at the time. We have always talked to her, read to her, sang to her, played music for her, bought all of these developmental toys to play with her, everything we could think of to try to optimize her cognitive growth. We have held and rocked and cuddled and hugged and loved on our daughter more than I ever thought possible. Countless hours.

But you wouldn't know that, would you? You wouldn't know because you are a selfish asshole, and you could count the number of times you have been around your first and only grandchild on your digits. You could count the number of times you've held her on one hand. You lost interest in my pregnancy when we found out that our unborn baby was a little girl. At the hospital when she was born, you wouldn't call her by her name, and repeatedly referred to her as "Brittany" and "Brooke." Instead of an appropriate baby gift, you brought your hours-old granddaughter a hideous dog chew toy in the shape of a pig that was bigger than she was. When your son asked you to hold his pride and joy, you waved him away and said, "Nah. I don't want to." When she was terribly ill and was hospitalized when she was four months old, you came to her hospital room and mocked the IV line in her head, even after hearing how traumatic the experience was for both she and I. She was horribly ill and we were afraid, no one knew what was wrong, and you sat there and laughed at her.

You think that you know so much. You've disregarded our baby's doctors' orders because you believe that you are so much smarter than her specialists. When she was having so many problems with her digestive tract, you fed her meat juice, when all she had ever ingested prior to that point was breastmilk, formula, and baby cereal. You asked Dave if our daughter could have it. He said no. We looked over and not a minute later, you were doing what you wanted anyway. You've run your mouth off many a time, telling us what we need to be doing to "make" her sit, crawl, walk, breathe better, sleep better, gain weight, whatever you thought her problem was on each occasion. Do you think that your son has forgotten that you were scarcely around when he was growing up, and that when you were, you didn't make an effort to be a parent? Do you honestly think that we would believe that you're an expert on any of these matters?

You're the most ignorant, pompous, immature, inconsiderate, heartless asshole I have ever known. How dare you. How dare you crush your own son with your words when he needed you to just shut up and listen, or God forbid, reassure him a little bit. He is scared. He is beside himself with stress and worry. And you respond with talking out of your ass and mindless, unfounded accusations. HOW DARE YOU accuse us of poor parenting and blame us when you are never even around to know that we devote every last drop of our love and energy into making everything right for our precious baby girl. How dare you make us question ourselves. How dare you try to make things worse than they already are with your idiotic lies. How dare you treat our family this way.

Swine fear

It may seem out of character for one who worries as much as I do in general, but I truly do not typically freak out over health scares that are hyped up by the media. Bird flu, West Nile virus, etc....those illnesses didn't scare me.

But this swine flu/H1N1 threat is a different story. I didn't think much of it the first couple of days that the news mentioned it. Wednesday night, I got a little stressed over it because the first 6 or 7 minutes of the news was dedicated to nothing but swine flu coverage. Then, Thursday morning, when I was driving to work, a nationally syndicated radio show read this email, written by a Texas doctor, on the air. And I began panicking. OMG, my baby. What if she gets it? There are people who have contracted this virus clinging to life on respirators? Brooklyn already has an airway defect. What would happen to her if she became ill with it since she already has respiratory problems?

Then I heard reports that it is usually the 2nd or 3rd person in a household who contracts the virus who is at the greatest risk. Okay, so that means that if my husband and I bring it home from work and Brooklyn gets sick after us, she would be in the worst shape. Then reports that the 23-month-old in Houston who died from it had "an underlying medical condition." Well, great, so does my baby!!! This is something like my extreme fear of RSV over the winter months, but amplified. We managed to escape RSV, with the help of Brooklyn's Synagis shots, and now there is this. And they are saying things like the virus is contagious for 2 days before the patient shows any symptoms and that the germs live for 6+ hours on all surfaces. OMG.

On Thurday and Friday, cases of swine flu started popping up locally. A couple of schools in the area closed down for the next 10 days. All UIL sports games and academic meets were cancelled for 2 weeks statewide. As of today, there are 300,000 Texas students home from school because their schools have been closed because of either confirmed or "highly suspected" cases of swine flu.

Since I had heard that supplies of Tamiflu and Relenza might run out soon, I decided to try to get a prescription for Brooklyn so that we would have it filled, just in case. Brooklyn's pediatrician has been so good to us, and has been so considerate of her special medical needs, so I was sure he would call a prescription in for her.

Nope. I got a call back from Dr. A's nurse saying that they were not prescribing Tamiflu for anyone as a prophylaxis. If Brooklyn shows signs of the flu, she will have to be seen by Dr. A, they will do a test for H1N1, and then prescribe Tamiflu if necessary. I thought that I had gotten this answer because Dr. A's nurse hadn't actually talked to Dr. A and said that it was for Brooklyn because of her laryngomalacia and how bad respiratory illnesses could be for her. But it's so ridiculously hard to call a doctor's office and actually talk to a doctor, I didn't know when/if I might be able to talk to Dr. A himself. I then called Dr. G2, Brooklyn's pulmonologist, and Dr. R, her gastroenterologist, with the same request. I got voice mails from nurses at both doctor's office that were nearly identical to the message Dr. A's nurse had left me earlier. I mean practically verbatim.

So now I am convinced that the CDC or some other government agency is not allowing doctors to prescribe Tamiflu or Relenza without a documented diagnosis of H1N1. I know that they are trying to keep close track of every case of H1N1 so that they can monitor the virulence and how quickly it is spreading. I understand that they don't want to run out of the drugs because too many people wanted it "just in case," but can't you make an exception for babies and children who have the potential to suffer the most from the virus? I don't care if I get a prescription for myself or for Dave. I just want one for my little Brooklyn. I am truly terrified that she will catch this, and so scared of what it could do to her.

I'm sorry, does this make you uncomfortable?

Sometimes I wonder what the right answer is when people ask how Brooklyn is doing. I'm asked this about a dozen or so times a day at work. When I first came back from maternity leave, Brooklyn was having so many problems, and of course we didn't know what was wrong. So people would ask, "How's the baby?" The first few days, I would actually try to explain what was going on with her health. But after getting some blank stares and some odd responses, I quickly shortened my answers to things like, "Well, she's okay. She has an appointment with a specialist next week." Or..."She's all right. We are about to have some tests done to try to figure out what's wrong with her breathing and why she isn't gaining weight." Things like that. But I keep it short and sweet. People still seem uncomfortable with that. If something positive is going on, I tell them that...for example, "Well, she gained some weight!" Or, "No, she's not better yet, but we found out what's wrong, and that's a huge step in the right direction." Or I'll tell them how excited I am about her sitting up or saying "Mama" or reaching some other milestone. If I go that route, they usually ask about her health next, but it seems like they still don't REALLY want to know.

I don't lie to people. I don't just say everything is great or good or fine with us. Honestly, I don't really feel like I should have to. I know that's the acceptable answer...but am I alone in feeling like if people are going to ask, they deserve a real answer? No, I'm not going to go into detail, but why should I have to give you a fake perfect picture of what my life has been lately? When you specifically ask me how my child is, why should I have to lie to you about it? Just because you might not know what to say?

I know we all do it. When we ask people how they're doing, we generally don't want to hear the truth. It's just a formality most of the time, and all we really want to hear is "Fine."

I wonder what it must be like for parents with terminally ill or very, very sick children. I wonder how they handle the everyday questions about how their kids are without making people squirm. Trust me, I know our situation is nothing compared to these. And I think that's what makes me feel kind of guilty about giving people a real answer. Then they might not think that I'm happy enough about being a mother. They might think I'm just feeling sorry for myself, or that I'm not grateful to have my sweet baby bear. What if they think I am fixated on the negative and don't think that I am totally crazy in love with my adorable daughter?

A few months ago, when we still didn't know what was going on with Brooklyn, when we had tons of tests coming up, when I was terrified of what could be wrong, a former coworker came by my floor at work to visit. He had retired about a year prior, but we had occasionally exchanged emails since then. He knew that I had just returned from maternity leave and that Brooklyn had been having some problems. He asked me how things were going with her. I gave him a little bit longer version of our situation, because I felt like he would be understanding. He was a parent and his first grandson was just a bit younger than Brooklyn. I told him about all her medications, breathing treatments, lack of weight gain, the tests she was having to go through. And his response was, "You know, there are a lot of parents that go through much worse. It's not that bad."

You don't think I know that? You don't think that I feel guilty all of the time because I know there are so many parents suffering through so much more? That I don't think I should be happier or less stressed because other mommies lose their babies, or live with the reality that they could lose their babies any day? I KNOW these things. This man made me feel about two inches tall. I felt like I should never tell anyone anything other than "Everything's fine."

Really and truly though...I don't feel like we should have to apologize or feel bad about for things in our lives that are beyond our control. I don't think that we should have to create a false reality, especially when it comes to our children.

Right now, my reality is this: I have a beautiful, sweet, smart-as-a-whip eight-month-old baby girl. She's the most wonderful thing I could have ever imagined having in my life. Unfortunately, she has some health problems right now. She has laryngomalacia, a problem with her arytenoids, severe reflux, and "failure to thrive." She's been through all kinds of tests and procedures and she has several specialists. She takes multiple medications, but they really don't seem to help. I don't know whether she will outgrow this or whether she will have to have surgery. I hate that I can't fix her and that no one else has yet either. And I get stressed out, and I get scared. And if you're going to ask me how my baby is, I'd appreciate it if you would validate my feelings instead of making me feel like a terrible person for telling you the truth. I'm not asking you to feel sorry for us, because Lord knows there are many, many others who you should feel sorry for before us. But please, just don't make me feel worse about a situation that already makes me feel bad. Thank you.

Thoughts, anyone???

Choose well.

Get out there and vote today. It matters. As Americans, we are fortunate enough to live in a country where we have the privilege to choose our leaders, and we should not take that right for granted. Be proud of it. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that your opinion doesn't count.

I am truly afraid of what may happen to our country if the wrong choice is made. There is so much at stake. But this isn't a political blog, and I'm not here to force my views on anybody or step on anyone's toes. So I will just say that you should educate yourself on the issues and make a wise, informed decision. Think not just about yourself but about our children and their children. What we do now will determine how we will be judged by future generations.

And remember, if you don't vote, you are still making a choice. You are making the decision to forfeit both your right to have your voice heard AND your right to complain about politics for the next four years! If you don't care enough to get out and vote for what you believe in now, you shouldn't care enough to whine about our leaders later.