The story below is from our November/December 2021 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
The doctor will see you now.
I took my sons Liam and Preston to the pediatrician recently, for a routine check-up. Of course, nothing about seeing the doctor is routine now. You’re checked in from your car, over the phone, and you stand in the waiting room once you are allowed in the building. The usual distractions, like cups of broken crayons at the tiny tables and seen-better-days toys have been hidden away (COVID!), but my boys are in middle and high school now. Those things stopped being interesting long ago.
A harried looking mom, face free of make-up, hair piled in a messy bun, probably fantasizing about a shower, was already in the waiting room when we arrived. She had an infant in a car seat and a toddler son, who was determined to sit in the chairs, which were blocked off with painter’s tape. She cooed and coerced, with her bag of gummy snacks and tiny matchbox cars. I watched, feeling both solidarity and a strange distance from her, two moms on opposite ends of raising children.
I’m an infrequent visitor to the pediatrician now, but oh, I remember. You cannot shepherd four children through the baby and snot-filled toddler and preschool years without finding yourself in that waiting room over and over again once that first fall chill arrives.
Familiar to parents everywhere, pediatrician season is the achingly long stretch of months from October to April when your child’s doctor’s office could double as a second home. When my daughter arrived on the scene, she turned things up a notch. Unlike her older brothers, every sniffle seemed to turn into a thick, wet cough—the kind of croupy mess that landed us there more times than I could count.
As I watched my waiting room partner herd her son towards the nurse as their name was called, I remembered one particular fall visit, when I herded Liam and Preston with a double stroller to the exam room, with a very sick Amelia on my hip.
That day my boys, as always, spun maniacally on the doctor’s circular stool, and shoved all the snacks into their mouths that I could throw at them, half of the snacks falling to the floor. I recall looking at the smashed goldfish, wondering if I could summon the energy to bend down and pick them up. It was me who was harried that day, exhausted after being up all night with a sick baby.
When the doctor saw Amelia that October, she was concerned about RSV. Amelia’s oxygen levels weren’t great, and she needed a breathing treatment. The doctor told me that RSV could require hospitalization in a baby as young as mine, but she was hopeful that she could treat her in the office and with medication at home.
We never saw the inside of the hospital that day, but it happened later. Amelia was diagnosed with asthma at four, and we’ve spent the night in the hospital for asthma attacks. Her brothers have had bloody gashes, broken bones and one nearly lost eye to an accident. Amelia added her own broken arm to the tally last fall, with an unfortunate fall off of a hoverboard.
Before kids, I got weak in the knees if I saw a drop of blood, but I barely wince anymore. Though the first few medical traumas threw me into a complete panic, the years have excavated a tougher me, a woman who can keep a clear head when faced with a bloody limb or a wheezing child. I’ve learned to lock those wobbly knees back and buck up, because my kids look to me to determine whether they should panic. The day your first child is born you are officially “in charge” even though sometimes you want to cry out for your own mom. And as soon as you are comfortable in your role, the game changes. They get older, the challenges are fresh.
At least now, I can face those challenges freshly showered.
The story above is from our November/December 2021. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!
