Fast Forward

We’re skipping a lot. This isn’t my life story, this is just one tiny part, and I’m going to attempt to stay on track with the story. If you have questions about other happenings in my life, ask away and I’ll get to them after this is over. Again, if you want to ask anonymously, use my formspring link in the upper right corner of this blog and ask anything.

We’re going to fly past huge chunks of my life so that we may arrive at the destination in a timely manner. We pick back up in 2002. I’m married and we have an infant daughter. Things with my family have been okay for the most part. I get a little shit here and there and I have to put up with a lot of ignorant comments from some family members, but who doesn’t? I enjoy spending time with all of them, no matter how different we are. I always thought they felt the same.

New motherhood was hard on me. My baby wasn’t planned and I don’t know what I’m doing. To top it all off, she has colic and I have post partum depression. It was a very, very hard time in my life. She would wail for hours on end and there was no consoling her. My mother could barely keep her for me long enough for me to go to a class at State. She would call me on my way home, bawling with the baby wailing in the background, telling me I had to come get her because she just couldn’t take it.

Sometimes while pacing back and forth trying to soothe her, I would have fantasies of opening the front door and kicking my baby outside in the same way I saw football kickers attempting a field goal. Sometimes I would have fantasies about slitting my wrists in the bath, or I’d seriously wonder how one could drown in the shower. I knew these thoughts were unhealthy and, though I trusted myself not to actually attempt to turn any of them into reality, I loved my baby and didn’t want her to have a mother who thought such things. I went to a therapist and a doctor and began Paxil and counseling. I felt better in no time.

My daughter did not. The colic seemed to last forever. Car rides were especially hellish. She would never relax and the longer the ride lasted the louder she would scream. At the end of a trip lasting more than an hour she would have a slight fever and her throat would be so sore she’d actually have more of a reason to cry. I would cry too.

So when my family got together for something in Madison that year, I knew I had to do something. Not going was not an option for me; I loved our gatherings. Of course not taking my baby wasn’t an option either, and I didn’t want her to suffer because I wanted to take her. I went to the pediatrician and explained my dilemma. This was not the first time we were in his office begging for help with her colic, and I was lucky to have such an understanding pediatrician, as he knew I was well aware there was little he could really do. This time, he suggested I give her something to ease her for the ride. We wondered if she was teething, and I had been slathering oragel on her gums as necessary. I wasn’t sure it was working. He suggested that, instead, I give her a little benadryl. “Rub it on her gums,” he instructed, “And if you need to, you can give her up to an eighth of a teaspoon.” He explained that he actually trusted benadryl more than oragel and felt it was safer for her if ingested. He also told me that it numbed her gums and relieved teething pain better.

I dosed her before the ride by dipping her pacifier in it when she would start really crying. I had to do that a few times on the way, but it worked! I think part of it was that she liked the taste, and it distracted her. She didn’t sleep, but she didn’t really have enough to make her drowsy. She did cry, but it was much, much better. What a relief!

We had a nice time and were about to embark on the journey home. I can’t remember if I ever actually gave her the 1/8th teaspoon or not, but I do know that Tonya, my cousin Drew’s then-girlfriend noticed me dipping my daughter’s “binky” into the pink liquid and asked, “Aww, is she sick?”

Now I don’t know how I actually responded. This was 6 years ago now and I’d be lying if I told you I remember explaining anything to her about what the doctor had told us.

All I know is that I was with my family and I felt comfortable. I treated Tonya as if she was family too, because she was there. So I’m not sure what I said, but if I know me well enough, I probably told her, “Naw she ain’t sick, I’m trying to knock her ass out for the ride.”

And that was true, I was. Now if you knew me at all, you’d know how I felt about my baby and that I wasn’t actually drugging her nonchalantly with no medical advice just because I was annoyed when she cried. And you’d also know that I have a way of putting things, thinking I’m being funny, that actually might make something asinine and understandable sound downright horrible.

But regardless of what she really thought, I still believe what she did next was out of line, inconsiderate, overly dramatic, attention-seeking, backstabbing, and wrong.

I don’t know who came to me first, but I heard from a couple of people that someone was going around saying that I dope my baby up so she won’t cry. (Oh the joy of living in a small town!) The benadryl was specifically mentioned to me in one person’s account. I immediately thought of Tonya, because I didn’t use that benadryl often and that was the only time I could think of using it away from home, in front of people. Also, I remember her nosy inquiry. I asked my sources where they heard it and most were reluctant to say. I wouldn’t accuse anyone without knowing for sure and having someone flat tell me they heard her say it, so I let it go… until I ran into someone who one person had told me I should ask. My old friend Lacey.

Lacey’s brother had recently married or had a baby and his young wife was friends with Tonya for some reason (probably for the same reason most of Tonya’s friends are much younger women – I’m not sure too many people who have had the chance to get to know her well or her peers whose age is congruent with their maturity level want to have much to do with her). Anyway, Tonya and Drew were at this young couple’s home and so was Lacey’s mother. Lacey’s mother was the one who heard Tonya tell everyone there that I “dope my baby up with Benadryl to get her to sleep.”

I was disappointed, because I thought I could talk to her like family and she would treat me like family too. If I thought a member of my family was mistreating their baby, I’d voice my concern to a family member. I wouldn’t run around town gossiping about it. I pondered what I should do.

As Tonya and Drew weren’t married, I considered how I would want a family member to handle the situation if it were me in Drew’s place and Jeremy (my then-husband) in Tonya’s. My main concern was that things like this were issues handled within our family and not used for conversation starters at parties. I thought the best way to handle this was to go to Drew, the member of the family who trusted Tonya and wanted her to be part of our family enough that he brought her to our family functions.

For obvious reasons to you now, I was uncomfortable going to Drew with my problem. So I went to his mother. First I asked her if Tonya had said anything to her about me giving my daughter the medicine. She admitted that Tonya had indeed asked why I did that, and my aunt had told her that the baby had allergies. “But,” I corrected her, “she doesn’t have allergies. I did genuinely give her the medicine to help her rest, but it isn’t as horrible as it sounds.” I went on to fully explain why I did that, and then I told her what happened that upset me.

She asked who accused Tonya of saying such and I wouldn’t tell her. I thought it was irrelevant – it was pretty obvious that she said it, and I thought my aunt knew that as well as I did. I thanked her for listening and I left.

Later my mom told me that she had discussed the issue with her sister, who made a pretty big deal out of me not telling her who said they heard Tonya say it. So my mom told her, my permission be damned (I had told my mom everything). Apparently that didn’t make the difference my aunt originally claimed it did, because they all still defended Tonya as if I was wrong to say anything about it. Mom told me that my aunt had informed Drew of my accusation and he told her they weren’t “going to dignify that with a response.”

Wait, what? They weren’t going to “dignify” my concerns with a response? I was pissed, but there was little I could do but get over it. So I did, but I learned from it. I learned that I cannot trust Tonya and that my family cared less about me than I thought.

That’s hurtful to think, so I put it out of my mind and went on about my life, pretending nothing had happened. After all, there had been many slights from my mother’s family before and that was just something everyone had to deal with, right?

I had no idea how hateful they could be, but I would soon find out.

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