Last week was a bit of a babypalooza.
Monday was childbirth class.
Wednesday we interviewed our first pediatrician.
Thursday we had a group prenatal appt.
Baby, baby, baby, all the time baby.
I suppose this is what happens as you come to the end. Your focus goes from all things pregnancy to all things baby.
Suddenly we've had to become parents without actually having the baby yet.
We made decisions AS PARENTS last week.
First thing we decided?
Everyone who comes near baby for the first 2 months has to have a whooping cough vaccine. This is entirely because of the area of the world that we live in. Marin County, just over the bay, is both one of the most under vaccinated counties in the country AND had a whooping cough outbreak a few years ago that killed some babies.
So, better safe than sorry, we're all getting vaccinated.
Second decision?
We picked our kid's first pediatrician.
We are big crunchy hippies apparently (seriously San Francisco, you could at least make me WORK to be the big fat crunchy hippie that I apparently am) as we've chosen an "integrative medicine" practice ie. holistic and western medicine "integrated", that believes FOOD IS MEDICINE.
Music to my ears.
I believe wholeheartedly in the power of food to heal chronic ailments. And I always strive to fix any imbalance naturally before resorting to western medicine for things like bladder infections, yeast infections, etc etc.
Did you know garlic and olive oil can heal ear infections? Yeah...it totally works. I've done it.
If I would have ended up with a pediatrician who tried to tell me that a colicky baby wouldn't benefit from me changing my diet I would have gone apeshit. Fussy breastfeeding baby? First things first, CHANGE YOUR DIET.
Seriously, music to my ears.
And another added benefit? The pediatrician is 3 blocks away. And another benefit? They do baby's first checkup in-home. That's right, Dr. comes to us! And another benefit? They believe in homebirth. And they believe in the parents right to choose what vaccines to give their babies.
I've been prepared to have to fight my pediatrician on a lot of things, homebirth, delayed vaccinations, mama's diet when breastfeeding, SO MANY THINGS...and it turns out I probably won't have to.
Anyone else trying to find pediatricians and fall in love with the first one?
And anyone else finding it bizarre that you're making decisions for a child that doesn't actually exist outside the womb yet??? I had to fill out forms and instead of putting my name under "patient name" it went under "parent name"!!!
Shit's getting real.
oh yeah.. wait until you fill out insurance forms to add the baby and stuff like that and you start writing "Mother" "daughter" "son".. its so surreal! Glad you found a good pediatrician! Ours is very much "do what you feel is best and I'll support it" too, so that is nice. :-)
ReplyDeleteAh! I'm so jealous, I hope we'll be able to find a pediatrician like that in sonoma county. Particularly one that takes our insurance! It seems like most of the doctors within our medical group are pretty standard "drugs are the answer" types. May have to branch out and go to Marin in hopes of some hippie doctors :-) congrats on all your big parenting decisions!!
ReplyDeleteI'm curious what list of questions you brought to your pediatrician? For instance, I'm wondering how you asked him/her about how they felt about colic? I mean, I guess you could just come out and ask that, but I'm a wuss so I was hoping you had a very specific question. ;-)
ReplyDeleteMy midwives gave us a list of questions for our pediatrician and the colic one was this:
DeleteHow do you treat colic? And do you feel that foods eaten by the mother affect the baby?
When they started nodding their heads I was sold! Food changes are the first treatment for colic!
I think it's shocking that not everyone follows this treatment when it is constantly been proven to be the cause. It's mind-blowing, really. Thanks for the (very obvious) example question. Hehe.
DeleteI know what you mean about making parenting decisions so soon. The same day we found out that we were having a boy, my OB asked us if we were planning to get him circumcised. I hadn't given it one thought. Luckily hubby had strong feelings on the issue, so I let him decide. After all, he knows more about the boy parts than I do.
ReplyDeleteAlso, whooping cough has hit epidemic levels in our state. I think the cases went from 18 last year to well over 2,000 this year and it is only June. Scary! I don't want to be one of those overly-protective moms, but everyone will have to get their TDAP booster before our Christmas gathering this winter.
100% agree with vaccine it's out of control where I live as well (we got us some hippies too!) I feel quite strongly about this issue but this isn't the time nor place to debate!
ReplyDeleteHow cool! I'm not quite there yet (only 24 weeks) but that's awesome. I, too, feel like a crunchy little Southern-California hippie - which is so funny when you've spent your teens & twenties as a goth ;-) I haven't looked into delayed vaccines, but that sounds like it's worth a gander. Good luck, mama!
ReplyDeleteI am so very jealous of your doctor!!! Our ped "deals" w/our requests & our desire to homebirth, but certainly doesn't support it! Wish I could find someone like you have!
ReplyDeleteWe are STILL looking for a good pediatrician! :-(
ReplyDeleteGlad you found one you love! :-)
WE love our pediatrician, and found her by accident since she's just who they gave us when we called the special needs clinic to schedule an appointment! I was really worried with the second one that we were going to have to go out and find ANOTHER ped. I love Sadie's doctor...she answers my emails within 24 hours (even on weekends or if she's on vacation), she gives me hugs when we come see her, and she's NEVER pressured me on ANY decision, test, or vaccine. So, when she told me she'd see our next baby because he's a sibling, I almost jumped with joy. She even told me we could do well checks at the same time so i didn't have to worry about bringing them in twice (plus Sadie's birthday is during RSV season and it's always a little scary to visit the hospital then).
ReplyDeleteAs for whooping cough, good for you. That's one of the vaccines I DID want Sadie to have, and I'll make sure our next child has. Most vaccines given to children are to prevent illness in adults/caregivers, but whooping cough is scary for babies. I recommend reading Dr. Sears's The Vaccine Book, it's very objective and full of good information if you're planning on making any decisions about vaccines (as opposed to just doing everything the CDC recommends).
Yay for big decisions!!