How fairies have been pissing off Tallulah: Part 1, the doctor dilemma

We've been having a hard time finding a pediatric doctor. Hmm, let me amend that: we've been having a hard time finding a pediatrician I like. I'm picky, particularly when it comes to my kids' health.

My parameters, when I was pregnant with Tallulah and interviewing pediatrians, included a holistic mindset and calm manner. I'm not big into medications-- I like using gentle techniques like good nutrition, herbal supplements, and homeopathy rather than antibiotics and pain killers. And I very smugly read the articles coming out to support the validity of this. But despite the articles and the research, it has been very hard to find a doctor that will not only keep their hands off the meds, but also know supportive treatments. For instance, one of the doctors I interviewed told me, "oh yes, I practice natural, holistic medicine. Why just the other day I had an autistic patient prone to ear infections. After four rounds of antibiotics didn't work, I prescribed chewing xylitol gum and it worked!" I wasn't impressed with this story and didn't choose her as our doctor because, Holy Shit! Four rounds of antibiotics before you try something else?

Finally we found Dr. Weinberg and we loved him. Kind of. He's calm and gentle and actually prescribes natural remedies as well as conventional, like when Tallulah got an ear infection he told us to put garlic and mullein drops in her ear. He also gave us a prescription for antibiotics and told us what symptoms would make him give antibiotics to his kids. Very helpful. Plus he uses his same gentle demeanor with Tallulah and always asks her first before touching her or listening to her chest or heart. He did this even when she was a baby. He's respectful of her as a person and patient-- lovely and rare in medicine which either ignores the child and speaks only to the adult or does that weird babytalk thing with big eyes and simplified words. The problem I had, ironically, is that I didn't feel he worried enough. He runs a family practice and sees a lot of old people, so his "let's wait and see" response to my concerns made me worry that he wasn't looking closely enough. Wait and see? Wait and see what? If her nose will fall off? If her head explodes?

When Moxie was born, I called to make our first appointment after having a home birth. You have to take a homebirth baby into the doctor within 48 hours after birth so they can check the baby out and make sure the midwife accurately counted the toes, fingers, limbs, and heads. Intercoastal, the group practice Weinberg works with, is huge and the receptionist answering the phone and the nurse responding to her both apparently don't work with Weinberg very much (he has a reputation in town for being holistically minded and many of the homebirthers I know see him.) Anyway they both freaked out and asked a bunch of insulting questions before scheduling my appointment ("Did you have prenatal care? The baby was born when? Why didn't the midwife schedule the appointment? Do you have any record of the birth?" Luckily, I didn't have to worry that they would accuse me of stealing the baby from a hospital-- I have a video proving my ownership. And who was in attendance at Moxie's birth. ) Annoyed, I decided to look into another doctor who was promoting himself as a holistic pediatrician.

This year, with Moxie's visits, I loved Dr. Sevilla. He answered all my questions thoroughly, talked a lot about nutrition, and when I had a concern that he answered with a "wait and see" he also talked in length about why we wait and what we look for if there is cause for concern. I wasn't a fan of his nurse: on our second visit she took off Moxie's diaper to weigh her-- in a cold room-- and then screamed when she peed. Screamed! The woman needs to have a reality check about being a nurse. A nurse who works with children. I was a nurse who worked with old crazy people and let me tell you, baby pee should NOT make you scream. Plus she smells like smoke.

I decided to take Tallulah to her annual check up at Dr Sevilla's office instead of Dr Weinberg. I was concerned at Tallulah's four year old exam that Dr. Weinberg hadn't done a genitalia exam. Everybody else's doctors had done it and followed it up with "the talk." You know the one-- only doctors and parents need to look or touch and only to keep it healthy and clean, yadda yadda yadda. It seemed a symptom of the bigger, nonchalant or incomplete exam problem.

So we get to the appointment and the smelly, screamy nurse is there as usual. She weighs Tallulah with barely a word to her. If you've ever met Tallulah, you know that not talking to her is practically impossible since she will ply you with questions until she hits upon a mutually acceptable topic and then continue talking long after your eyes glaze over. But this nurse managed, with a few well-placed "uh huh"'s to completely avoid talking to T. except when she told her to hold still and be quiet.

Well, damn. I'm out of time and I have yet to tell you about Tallulah's fairy problem, her high blood pressure, color blindedness, or buckteeth. Stay tuned!