The Early Days

I feel like I've said it before but Olivia's earliest days were so hard. So, so hard.

And I want to say it again because anyone finding my blog, reading my words with a little tiny baby at home who has either been diagnosed with 5p- or is awaiting diagnosis, I want those people to know that it gets better. It does.

And I said that over and over during O's early days.

We got very used to carrying her around with her straddling our elbow, her tummy against our forearm and her chest on our hand. This was the only position that kept her from crying. And it didn't always last long. We had to do this hold while standing up because she didn't want to stop moving.

She hurt. Our baby was in almost constant pain from about three weeks old until she was almost six months old.

I read that stupid book, What to Expect in the First Year over and over, going to the pages that showed O's current age, comparing her to the babies the author was writing about.

Because I knew. I knew something was going on with our girl.

But our doctors kept saying she wasn't crying more than any other baby. She was just louder. And I'd get a pat on the head and a lollipop and sent on my way.

It wasn't until she developed a cough due to the reflux that they took me seriously.

It pisses me off to this day that those doctors were so complacent about my child's health. They didn't listen to a word I said. They didn't believe me when I told them that her cries weren't normal.

And it's not like I was a first-time mom who was just nervous. I'd been through the infant stage before. I knew what a hungry cry or a wet cry sounded like.

Olivia cried an almost constant "I FUCKING HURT" cry. And I couldn't fix it. Because no one listened to me.

Four months of my infant screaming.

Yet to anyone in my family who would demonstrate concern for me or for her, I'd smile and bounce my screaming baby and say, "It won't last forever. It'll get better."

When she was six months old, after two months on Zantac, things changed. They got better.

And to this day, they're so much better. Every day, she amazes us. She proves that time passes and things get better.

So those milestones your baby isn't meeting? Give him/her time. Olivia met her milestones in her own time (sitting at a year old, crawling at 17 months, walking at 29 months, talking at 33 months.)

But also? Don't ignore your instincts. Don't let the 'professionals' tell you that you're imagining things. We parents? We have an instinct. We know when things aren't quite right.

And while we tell ourselve things will get better, they'll sure as heck get better a little faster if we have our medical professionals on our side.