It’s well known among my friends and family that I’m not a very secure mother. I have confidence issues when it comes to babies because Jaxon is my first. Not only my first born, but the first baby I ever held. The first baby I changed a nappy on. The first baby I ever had to comfort. The first ever. I know that I am not the only woman ever to have had a baby and have it be the first baby experience she has ever had. But I can’t speak for them, I can only tell you about my experiences.

So firstly, with Jaxon’s many little issues, and facing doctor’s and nurses and paediatricians on a weekly basis, I found that very hard. I felt like they were sitting there and pointing their finger’s at me and secretly, deep down inside they were thinking “What a terrible mother” In my mind, they weren’t giving me advice, they were lecturing me. I felt small and insignificant.

There have been huge lesson’s along the way. Lesson’s that were really hard to live through, but that taught me a lot when I came out the other side alive.

The one I really want to tell you about is the day Jaxon had his allergic reaction to his four month shots. The day started off pretty normal. He’d had his shot’s at 5.30 the night before. I woke him up for his 6am bottle. Jaxon never ever throws up so I knew something was not right when he threw up this time. He didn’t go back to sleep like he normally did either so that was my second clue. At 9am he’d been crying and had a temperature for 3 hours. I tried once again to give him another bottle, thinking it might settle him down. But he threw that up as well. The health nurse told me to go to hospital so I did. I expected nothing more than them to tell me he had a cold and give him panadol.

That’s not what happened. The doctor’s all gushed around him. Two doctors and three student doctors. He had a temperature and he was swollen from head to toe. His fontanel was bulging out and you could see the bump through his hair. He didn’t stop crying while they took his blood, he didn’t stop crying when I tried to give him a bottle. He just wouldn’t stop crying. And he was HOT. The doctor’s said the words that no mother wants to hear.

Meningitis. They thought he had meningitis but the only way to find out for sure was to do a lumbar puncture and see what colour the fluid was when it came out. On my 4 month old baby. My local hospital is not a small hospital but it is by no means a large one either. Because of Jaxon’s scoliosis and his arm and leg and all those other issues, and because he was so small, they didn’t want risk doing anything near his spine. So that was it, we had to travel an hour to another hospital.

I called Tim home from work. While we waited, biting our nails, they tried to get a drip in to Jaxon’s arm. Because the ambulance wouldn’t take him without a drip to administer fluids or any drugs he needed quickly. His arms were so small that they couldn’t find a vein. So they had to drill a hole in his shin bone and insert a drip line through there.

Once we arrived at the larger hospital, after an awful ride in an ambulance, they made us wait in an emergency room. Mum came in and the first thing she noticed was how swollen Jaxon was. They did an ultrasound on his head and found that he had fluid around his brain. So they had to do a lumbar puncture. We didn’t stay around for that but when we returned Jaxon was calm and tightly packed in to lot’s of blanket’s so he couldn’t move. The fluid that came out, was clear. No meningitis.

We got moved to the paediatric ward. And this is where the trouble started. It wasn’t the doctor’s, it was the nurses. I had already spent 4 weeks out of home the month before. Jaxon also had a cast on his leg from his tenotomy on his leg for his club foot. I’d spent two weeks at Riverton, where we sorted out Jaxon’s routine. Eat at this time, sleep at this time, bath at this time, play at this time…repeat. It was perfect for our family. Jaxon was happier. But these nurses wouldn’t listen to me. The over-rode every thing I told them we’d been doing.

When it wasn’t time for a bottle, they gave him a bottle. When he normally wouldn’t be sleeping they wanted him to sleep. Jaxon wouldn’t sleep with the light’s on and is a really light sleeper. They put us across from the nurses station and wouldn’t let us turn the light’s off or even close the curtain’s. So Jaxon wouldn’t sleep. I would go to the toilet, leaving Jaxon asleep and peaceful in his cot and come back to find a nurse giving him a bottle. “He was screaming for a feed” they would tell me, when I had been gone all of two minute’s and it took them 2 minutes to get a bottle.

But the shit really hit the fan that first night we stayed there. At about 11pm Jaxon was crying, when normally he would be asleep. And Jaxon only cries when something is wrong. Really wrong. I’d fed him a bottle half an hour before he started crying, so he wasn’t hungry. I called the nurse in and asked if we could give him panadol. She said no, he’s hungry, give him a bottle. I told her that he’s just had a bottle and that I thought he was in pain. She said “Why would he be in pain? Well hello lady, he’s had his shin drilled, he’s had a lumbar puncture and just three days ago he had the muscle in his leg cut and cast. I think he’s in pain. I told her that but she wouldn’t listen to me. She kept telling me to give him a bottle.

I asked her, if I agreed to give him a bottle, and he didn’t calm down, would she then give him panadol??? She said yes. So I gave him a bottle. Even though I knew he wasn’t hungry and was in pain. But 1 hour later, Jaxon was still crying. And I was alone in my room trying to calm him down. After 4 weeks of continual crying, you can imagine how well I cope with that, it’s not much I can tell you. But all the while, these two nurses stood not four feet from our room where Jaxon was obviously in pain and hadn’t taken a breath in nearly 2 hours of crying, talking. Chatting like nothing was going on.

I didn’t know what to do. And these nurse made me feel like I had NO IDEA what was going on with my own son. I knew he wasn’t hungry, and I knew he’s had a big day. I knew he was not going to settle down without help. And I was so stressed that I was not going to BE that help. But they stood and did nothing. I stood there, with cord’s and drips and casts and cried right along with Jaxon. I looked out at them, hoping that they would see the desperation in my face and come and offer me some help. Take Jaxon and try to settle him themselves. But nothing. They stood and they chatted.

At 1.30 in the morning, now almost 3 hours after I originally asked the nurse for the panadol I’d had enough. I put Jaxon in his
cot crying and walked out. I stormed out to be more accurate. I told the nurses “I’m going for a smoke, if you think he’s not in pain then YOU (bleep bleep bleep) get him to sleep” and I walked out. I left my son in the hands of complete idiot’s because I didn’t know any other way to get them to help me. Help Jaxon.

I came back two hours later and Jaxon was STILL crying. They’d called in back up, an apparent “baby whisperer” who could work her magic and get any baby to calm down. But she walked up and down, as far as the drip would let her, and she could not settle him. She had two bottle’s on the bench. He’s not hungry she tells me. He wont eat she tell’s me. I said, I know. He’s in pain. And YOU said you’d give him pandadol five hours ago if I gave him a bottle, and then IGNORED his crying.

Finally, at nearly 4am in the morning, they gave Jaxon panadol. And guess what? He went to sleep.

That wasn’t the only issue I had with those nurses during that hospital stay (5 days) but it was the most significant in my story. That was a moment. You know you have moment’s in life when you look back and think…now THAT taught me THIS. Well that, when I KNEW that all Jaxon needed was some pain relief for him to get to sleep, was such a huge moment for me. It was the moment when I finally realised that I am Jaxon’s mother. And I know best. It’s when I learnt that no matter what anyone is telling me, I should listen to my gut instinct, and my heart. And do what I think is best. For MY son.

If those nurses had just listened to me and tried it out (and seriously, what is the harm?) that entire night would have gone a lot better. Jaxon would have been peacefully sleeping and so would I. That night, not matter how traumatic it was for me, will forever be in my mind as the day that changed the way I saw myself as a mother.