Today is my daughter’s 1st birthday! In celebration, or rather, in poor planning, we had scheduled her one year doctor’s appointment this morning. She had a few vaccinations at the doctor’s appointment and then we were sent nearby for a blood-draw. We frantically tried to use her numbing ointment wherever we were told she would be pricked, but there seemed to be a disconnect between where we were told her blood-draw would be and where it ended up, so she didn’t have the ointment in the right place.
In hindsight, we should have rescheduled. The ointment takes half an hour to take effect, and a blood-draw is more involved than getting a shot. This would be her first. We decided to “get ‘er done” since we were there and my husband had taken the time from work to help and be present. My husband held Maya while I tried to distract her with a toy and hide the shot with a book (for both of us) while trying to feed her with her bottle. It seemed to go on forever, but was maybe a minute or two when my husband said it was enough, while Maya continued crying. I thought I was doing all I could to help my daughter survive the draw.
Maya - 11 Months
It turned out there was no blood drawn! The aide was trying to find a vein! All that time, she said nothing while pricking my daughter for nothing! I don’t understand why she couldn’t just say she couldn’t find it before pricking her or during the unproductive process! I would have told her to stop way before my husband did. This unproductive process has been done with me and I know how painful it is (I had a whole line of co-workers watch while my arm was repeatedly pricked). I can’t believe this was being done to my child, whose arm is a fraction of the width of mine.
I have a general frustration with some of the professional world that deal with children (and maybe shouldn’t), that seem to discount the pain kids feel. It’s as if they think that if you can’t speak, you don’t feel pain, or that it somehow doesn’t matter. I’ve read about surgeries done on babies with little pain relief. It was after reading an article that I found out about the ointment we now use, which I requested a prescription for. I don’t see why it wasn’t mentioned by the medical office or just used by them. More and more, as a parent, I’m learning how proactive we must be in caring for and protecting our children. It’s frustrating that we can’t always trust professionals in their care, at least not to the level we may want and prefer.
There are unfortunately many ugly realities of parenthood, with vaccinations and blood-draws being high on the list. We can at least do what is within our power to make these ugly realities less so for our kids.
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