Frustration – Just Keep your Advice to Yourselves!

There are crying spells. And then there are THOSE crying spells.

I had fair warning, of course. With so many pediatrician friends around, how could I not?

“They’ll start after the first fortnight…lasts hours at a time…continues for months…nothing works, darling; absolutely NOTHING!! But you better keep a few medicines at hand – who knows? You might be one of the luckier ones!”

Okay, I thought.

I am prepared for this, I assured myself. I am a doctor – a doctor well versed with dealing with emergencies, damn it! I can deal with it.

Only to fail spectacularly at the first hurdle.

There had been no immediate warning from the kiddo, that’s all I can say in my defense. The young man had been happy since morning, coo-ing and playing, sleeping and feeding normally. You know – the usual routine. So I bathed him at the usual time, fed him and tucked him under the sheet to sleep.

Or so I thought.

Bawling. Crying. Tears streaming down his face – a first, and a shocker. Voice choking from crying. Few seconds of deceptive calm, as he took a breather, completely worn out. And then the cycle would start again.

I tried, okay? I tried my best – tried every trick in the book. Fed him again and again till I was sore and certain that he felt anything but hungry. Belly massage, colic medication – everything. But nothing would work. And it would take every inch of effort from my side to not burst into tears as he launched into another fresh spell of pitiful cries.

The opinions all around – well, as diverse as they could be. But man, words can’t even begin to describe exactly how irritated I felt when everyone just kept repeating the same words again and again – he must be hungry, he’s not feeding enough, you HAVE to start him on supplemental feeding. I know they all meant well – or at least, most of them did – but I also knew they were wrong. And somehow, it just felt like this was nothing but judgement being passed on my ability to be a mother.

It was silly, I know. But it wasn’t a feeling I could really shake off, nor was it a feeling I was having for the first time. Day after day, starting from right when I first brought him home and he cried all night; right up to this day – more than four months later, whenever this point is mentioned, the only feeling which arises in me is one of resentment, of being judged unfairly – like swimming your lungs out and thereafter being dismissed with “you just didn’t try hard enough!”

Of course, my pediatrician friend was absolutely nonchalant about it all when I finally managed a call, sometime after the spell had finally settled following yet another round of medications.

“You’ll just have to keep trying, ‘am afraid,” he gave a resigned laugh, “it’s useless trying to find the reason why…half the time even we don’t know!”

This was a new experience, you know. As a doctor, never had the thought of the diagnosis being unknown felt so, so welcome. How comforting it was – the feeling of not being judged anymore…