I drifted off to sleep last night, exhausted and looking forward to a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. I needed that sleep. I earned it and I deserved it, because I’ve been sick and there’s no number to call in for a sick day from motherhood, and I’m allowed to feel sorry for myself sometimes.
Whine, whine… can’t a woman just get a little sleep around here? Is that so much to ask? Apparently.
About 45 minutes in to what was going to be an amazing night of sleep, I felt a poke. It was Alison, telling me she’d just thrown up in her bed. On the sheets I had just washed, not 12 hours prior, and am I horrible that I thought that first before asking her if she was OK?
I helped her brush her teeth and change her clothes, and then I set about changing her sheets. Now, I’m a total rookie at middle-of-the-night puking, and I am pretty happy about that. Until last night, Alison had thrown up only one other time in her whole life.
So it took me awhile. And there were some mishaps involving my feet and hands going into places I didn’t realize had been soiled. But I stayed calm, loving and understanding because, after all, my little girl was sick! Eventually, I tucked her back in to her fresh sheets with a trash can by her bed and a Tupperware bowl by her pillow.
I said good night and went back to bed, naively thinking I was going to get some sleep. Instead, she called for me every 2 or 3 minutes, for almost three hours. I tried to channel my own mother, the one who would wipe my brow with a cool cloth and have never-ending patience with me whenever I was sick as a child. She later told me that taking care of us when we were sick was one of the things she absolutely hated the most in the world. But you never would have guessed it by her gentle demeanor.
I, on the other hand, was freaking frustrated, and tired. All I wanted was for her to go back to sleep and get some dang rest so that I could get some rest. I think maybe I would have had more patience if she had actually been throwing up, but she was just afraid she was going to throw up. And she wanted me to sleep on the floor by her bed. Where her throw up hand landed, only a short time before.
Is it because I haven’t slept through the night in over 16 months that I am so cranky, or is there some motherhood gene I’m missing, that I can’t be compassionate for more than an hour in the middle of the night?
I feel selfish and horrible, that I couldn’t just be what she needed: a mother who would stay in her room all night, lovingly stroking her brow.
Author: Dre
Her Independent Streak
Blythe has always been the type of baby who likes to have alone time. Well, other than those few weeks, early on, when she wanted to be nursed 24 hours a day. But other than that – she likes a little space to do her own thing. To explore the world around her. She was so obviously proud of herself, all I could do was laugh. And then clean like a maniac.
To march to the beat of her own imaginary drummer.
To figure out what this world has to offer.
So today, when Blythe left me alone to go play in her room, I picked up a magazine and settled in on the couch. I heard her turn on her music, and smiled to myself as I pictured her dancing in there.
After about ten minutes, I snuck around the corner to see what cuteness I might catch a glimpse of. But Blythe wasn’t spinning circles in the middle of the room, as I expected.
Instead, she was on her knees on the toddler futon where we change her diaper. It looked like she had been playing with her diapers and wipes, and was now moving on to her toothbrush drawer.
I moved toward her, but was almost bowled over by the stench emanating from her. She had actually been busy dropping a stinkin’ load in her pants, so I picked up my pace, saying, “Blythe, do you have a stinky bottom?”.
It was when she turned toward me, answering, “Poo-poo, hoo-wee!” that I noticed her skirt was askew. The closer I got, the more I realized that not only was Blythe’s skirt half off, so was her diaper.
And then the realization hit me: my 16 month old had attempted to change her own poopy diaper. Unfortunately, she was unable to get the skirt or the diaper completely off. So she just wiped at pretty much nothing and smeared poop all over… well, everything, as she rolled around on the futon.
Of course, once I told Blue Shield where to shove it, I got sick. You know how it goes.
I’ve had food poisoning before, from the one time I broke the no-beef-from-fast-food-restaurants rule I’ve been following since childhood. Yes, that week I spent in the bathroom brings back memories. Who needs ‘shrooms when you can get equally trippy hallucinations from severe dehydration?
So, I’m pretty sure that’s what I’ve got going on now – the nausea, the stomach cramps, the inability to swallow even water without retching, the wishing my plumber husband had installed side-by-side toilets. Because, let’s face it, there are times when both your ends need a toilet at the same exact moment.
But then I was lying in bed last night, feeling grateful for the tiny bit of applesauce I was able to keep down yesterday, and it occurred to me: maybe it isn’t food poisoning.
Maybe I caught something when we went to look at those nasty foreclosed homes we’re thinking of buying. I did have an open wound that could have let bacteria right in. A huge, throbbing zit is considered an open wound, right? I thought so.
Anyway, I made an appointment with Dr. Google today while I enjoyed a reprieve from the toilet, just to make sure I couldn’t have caught something gross from being in a disgusting, ceiling-caved-in, mildewy smelling house.
Guess what I found, invisible friends? The plague, that’s what. Fortunately, I don’t have any symptoms of the bubonic plague, just the septicemic plague. Although, since my symptoms seem to be getting better rather than progressing to bleeding from my rectum or gangrene in my extremities, I think I probably just have food poisoning.
You didn’t think I could find a way to make food poisoning look appealing, did you? Oh, ye of little faith.
An Open Letter to Blue Shield
Dear Blue Shield Underwriters,
First of all, let me say you should be grateful that I went to visit a friend before writing this letter. The one I drafted while in the shower this morning called you assholes instead of underwriters. Funny how a few laughs will change your attitude.
So, obviously, I received your letter. The one telling me that after all those personal questions you asked me on a daily basis (for weeks, no, months) finally helped you make a decision on my request to have a lower rating for my health insurance. The one where you told me that, instead of lowering my rating, you were actually raising it. Because, apparently, I’m even more of a health risk than you originally realized.
I mean, that mole I had removed, several years ago, because it was under my bra strap and irritated me? In retrospect, I really shouldn’t have had my doctor take that off. I can see why it’s too risky for you, because maybe I really had skin cancer but my doctor and I are covering our tracks with that whole ONE VISIT it took. Next time, I’ll ask our veterinarian to lob off any annoying moles. Or better yet, my husband has a pocket knife that would work perfectly.
And thank you for pointing out that I have a bicornuate uterus. WOW! I really hadn’t realized. I thought that whenever my doctor or midwife talked to me about it, they were really talking about someone else. Bicornuate, who?
What do you mean, it doesn’t matter that I’m not requesting maternity coverage? Even though we supplied you with letters from doctors and negative sperm count reports, you apparently think that I’m going to go ahead and get pregnant (I’m sure I can find some sperm, somewhere), pay for my high-risk pregnancy out of pocket (with all the cash I’ll have left in my account after paying you over $600 per month in health insurance), give birth to my baby (if the baby makes it to term) and then go ahead and hemorrhage. Just so I can laugh that evil “mwah ha ha ha” laugh I’ve been practicing, when Blue Shield gets stuck with THAT bill. Yes, that was my plan. Thank goodness you caught on to my little scheme. It really could have cost ya!
Oh, right, and that cosmetic surgery I had done eight years ago. Were you worried that suddenly Blue Shield would start covering cosmetic surgery and I was going to go nuts and get a new and improved rear end on your dime? Obviously I’m just so frivolous about my body, getting that surgery done back when I was 22 and not having anything done since. Yikes, talk about plastic! Oh and by the way, maybe it might help if you asked why I had it done. Just to gain a little perspective.
I find it interesting that not once has anyone requested that I take a physical, or asked questions about my weight, diet, exercise regimen, hygiene, dental habits, or about anything else that might give a clue about my actual health and well-being. Instead, it’s all about things that really don’t pose a risk to Blue Shield at all.
Here’s a letter I would have respected:
Dear Andrea,
We really don’t want to insure you. Instead of causing you discomfort by digging into your medical history repeatedly, and asking you to supply us with documents that are decades old (man, who knew you actually kept that stuff around, and in a place where you could find it so quickly?) we should have just let you know. You are welcome to fork over a thousand dollars a month for us to insure your family, or you can just go with another option. Sorry for wasting months of your time.
Oh, and sorry we’re still having our staff call you and email you every day for more information! We forgot to let them know we’d already come to a decision.
Sincerely,
Blue Shield
But hey, Blue Shield Underwriters? We’re small business owners, and I just finished filling out the paperwork for group coverage. You’re going to cover me after all, and for a quarter of the cost!
Who’s laughing now, bitches? Mwah ha ha ha.
Best,
Andrea
p.s. If you think I’m going to see the doctor over every little sniffle and make you pay for it, you’re damn right. I’ve got nothing to lose.
* It took me 11 months to get up the courage to write this post. So if you need to be judgmental – fine, but keep it to yourself. I’ve judged myself enough for all of us, thanks. *
I talk a lot with other parents about the woes we will face as parents of teenage daughters. Often, the new vaccine GARDASIL comes up and we discuss whether or not we will vaccinate at the suggested age of twelve.
There are many parents out there who plan to refuse the vaccine, stating that they will teach their daughters about abstinence, and therefore their child will not need it. Further, I’ve heard that giving them the vaccine against HPV will give girls a false sense of security about sex in general.
Anytime I hear these arguments, I want to say a lot of things but mostly I want to tell my story. But I don’t. Because it’s painful and personal and I’ve spent a lot of years trying to get over the way it made me feel about myself.
But it’s time. My hands are shaking as I write, and I know that I’ll hesitate before hitting “publish”. If my story helps convince even one parent to vaccinate their child, however, it will be worth it*.
———–
When I was twelve, I was raped by a friend’s older brother.
It was on a cool, crisp winter day during Christmas break. A day that started out like any other for a girl in that wonderful stage between playing with dolls and wearing make-up.
The end of the day showed a different person, one who didn’t feel she had any choice but to go on with life and pretend she hadn’t been raped by an 18 year old man while her friend laughed from the top bunk.
In my 12-year-old mind, I couldn’t tell my parents because they would never look at me the same way again, would stop loving me, or find some way to blame me for what happened. In short, everything would change. I wanted to hold on to the hope that despite what happened, I would still be the same young girl I was when I woke up that morning.
My parents knew something was wrong – but I wouldn’t talk to them. They sent me to see a psychologist who, for lack of any concrete information, determined that I had an unhealthy fascination with black people (and by the way, you spell quack Q-U-A-C-K).
Over time I learned to wear the face of a normal person. I also decided that it was better to give something away than to have it taken without permission. During the ten years that followed, I made a lot of choices, both good and bad. Each and every one of them was shaped in some way by what happened to me that day.
As a teenager, I finally told someone – my best friend Rachel, who continues to be one of the rocks I lean upon for support. As time went by, I told a couple of boyfriends, my husband. Eventually, my mom.
I’d like you, please, to imagine you are my mom for a moment. Listening to her grown daughter tell her what she went through at the age of twelve. What she continued to go through on her own, letting one incident that she had no control over shape who she became. Imagine how my mom felt, wishing that somehow she could go back in time and make everything alright. Understanding her daughter in a whole new way. Wishing she could have been there to hold her daughter close and tell her that a mother’s love is forever.
Now imagine that, instead of sitting on the couch in my mother’s living room, we’re sitting together in a cold waiting room. Holding hands and talking about the future. I look to her and confess the secret I couldn’t tell her for fifteen years.
A nurse calls my name, and my mother leads me in to have my first round of chemo, because I’ve got cervical cancer. Already, doctors have removed my cervix because, despite yearly pap smears, the cancer was already at stage 4 when they caught it. I’ll never be able to have children, but hopefully I’ll survive.
I don’t have cervical cancer. I was lucky I didn’t contract HPV. The man who raped me robbed me of so many things in life – fortunately, my health and my ability to have children weren’t one of them. Please don’t leave your daughter’s future in the hands of luck, when you can take it by the horns with a simple vaccination.
Sexual activity, at any age, is not always a battle of abstinence versus promiscuity. Most rapes are committed by someone the victim knows. The rapes of young girls are especially under-reported because they are children dealing with something most adults can’t handle.
Don’t be the mom holding her daughter’s hand in the waiting room, please. Unless she’s twelve, and you’re waiting for her GARDASIL vaccination.
* I am all for a parent’s right to refuse vaccinations. My own children have not been “fully vaccinated” according to standards because I exercised that right. However, if the reasons for refusing the GARDASIL vaccination are purely because a parent believes a child will abstain from sexual activity, I disagree – heartily.