I feel the day of inoculation and the following 24 hours are another country altogether especially if it’s your first ever of your first born.
Nothing can prepare you for the heart churning cries of your kid you have been walking all night for many nights just to make sure she doesn’t cry, or keeps smiling. When the same kid screeches out and cries with tears streaming down her face and eyes bludgeoning out in disbelief almost saying “but I trusted you, how could you hurt me?” You really want to kill or die.
It was S’s vaccination day yesterday and I had already declared that I won’t see it or go anywhere near them. F was confident and okay to take charge but at the last second I changed my mind. I wanted to be around to scoop her up and whisk her away as soon as they were done poking. Which is what I did. My tiny cried and cried and I cried with her as usual. Then she went to sleep so deeply that we actually went out for a late lunch/ early dinner. She slept right through it. The entire following night was to be brimming with intermittent shrieks of pain dotted with a kid half unconscious in fever who would cry as if the world has ended if I as much as stopped rocking on the rocking chair. She slept with her face in my neck and body sprawled across my collar bone and shoulder all night. I tried Calpol infant before giving her the first dose and it was vile. I had to wash my mouth out. My poor baby had to take it and she did.
I had received plenty of guidance and very authentic and logical discourse and details on how vaccines are not the way to go from multiple friends of mine but what I love most about them is, neither tried to convince me actively. Just shared information to make sure I made an informed decision. Which I did when I went for my child’s vaccination and I know they’ll still love me no matter what. It’s such a fine line of what works for them and what doesn’t. What decisions we can and should make for them and what needs to be left for them to decide. Ear piercing or no ear piercing, head shaving or not, vaccination or not, pictures on social media or not. One wrong step and either you end up making a wrong decision or one that was never yours to make, disrespecting the existence of your child as an individual that she is. Either way, it’s a constant struggle to care for them as best we can. To never see them cry. Like ever. Like my needles phobia coupled with the wild ideas of give me a day long intravenous drip if it can pass through the breast milk to my baby and she can be saved from the pain. I’ll take it all. Don’t touch my kid!
This past week a Pakistani origin husband and wife were killed in a car accident in Saudi leaving behind a 7 and a 4 year old. That girl I found out was a school fellow’s youngest sister and I remember seeing her as a little girl. I can’t quite take my mind off that tragedy since then and thinking what happens to S if something were to happen to us. I can write a will, leave money to support her for as long as is needed etc. but who will taste her medicines before she takes them or cry with her when she cries?
Praying endlessly for those little ones who lost their parents. May their lives be as comfortable as they possibly can be, God knows it’s a tough ride ahead of them.
