Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

It's been over a year since I posted anything here. So? What?! That's what I thought. Maybe I did it on purpose. Maybe it just made you miss me, and made this post that much more precious to you. SEE? I did it for YOU.

The year between my last real post (Changing Focus) and this last Spring was pretty hard for us. I didn't go into details in that post about what the issues we were having were, as it was really too painful and traumatic to discuss-and still sometimes is-but I think most anyone interested in us enough to read this blog already knows anyway.  We were investigated by CPS for child neglect after refusing a Tetatus shot for Kiera (when she really didn't need one, and we could prove it-but CPS doesn't care about proof, they care about their stats and will always take the word of a doctor over a parent's proof.  I compiled a report and everything, as far as I know no one even looked at it.  Not to mentiont that we have a constitutional right to refuse any medical treatment for our children).  We dropped over a grand on an attorney, spent countless hours compiling information and doing research, gathered dozens of letters from friends and family extolling the many and varied glories of our parenting abilities, and none of it mattered. We were given a "choice"-take her in for the shot (on day 21 of a 21 day window), or be found guilty and, as out attorney phrased it, "be thrown into a level of hell you cannot imagine."  Given how hellish everything already was, we didn't feel we could subject the kids to any more-so in order to protect the family as a whole, we had to throw our poor baby (who had as of then never had a shot) under the bus.  The real kicker is that the shot they required was a TIG (tetanus immunoglobuin), which is supposed to protect an unimmunized person until the Tetanus shot it effective (all vaccines take 3-4 to offer protection, so running in to get a Tetanus shot the day of an injury is not protecting you).  The TIG protects you (supposedly) for about 28 days, so given with a Tetanus shot, you're supposed to be covered.  That's the standard protocol.  I knew this, Troy knew this, our attorney knew this. 

They never made us give her a Tetanus shot.

Nothing they did to us had anything to do with her well-being.  Nobody checked the medical protocal.  I think the doctor was so shocked at how crazy it all got, he just told them she had to have that shot so he didn't have to admit he messed up.  If she'd actually been exposed to Tetanus, she'd be dead now (according to the doc-he told us when children get Tetanus, they die.  I later found that it's been over 50 years since a child has died from Tetanus in the US--it's a long recovery, but they recover).  And WE were the ones being charged with neglect. 

I (surprise surprise) am a very sensitive person.  Sensitive to all things, good and bad--so sometimes being sensitive is great. An aunt once told me, "You feel things more deeply than most people." How can that be bad, right?  I still can't talk about this experience calmly.  It is etched in my soul.  Seriously folks, the first three times people knocked on our door after the CPS agent came, I made the kids lay down so no one would see us through the windows and prayed they'd just go away.  I now have a deep anxiety of medical caregivers--even taking the kids to a naturapathic clinic for well-child checks gave me the shakes and heart palpitations.  The first time I talked to our midwife about it in person (two months after), I sobbed the whole time, and told her I was just so tired and devoid of a want to DO anything, and she said, "well of course, you're depressed.  It's the worst thing any of our clients has ever been put through" It was the first anyone outside the experience had acknowledged how very very very bad it was (everyone knew it was bad, but it's hard to really understand HOW bad), and the first time I allowed myself to see how deep it had gotten into me. 

Add all of that to the tremendous pile of s@#* Troy was being pushed through at work, and it really took us about a year to get back to feeling any kind of normal. I can't tell you how many times I opened Blogger, stared at it pondering all the things I could write, and then just closed it because I couldn't find it in me to care.  But now his six-day work weeks and 12 hour days are behind him, his uber-evil boss had to leave the company, he's working less than five minutes from home, and he comes home for lunch almost every day.  The kids are thriving, our pet population gives us all someone to pet and cuddle, and summer is taunting us from behind the rain clouds.  (Seriously summer, you're very funny, but it's time to come out now.  Now.)  I feel like last year's experiences were like a wall between me and my creativity, and now that I've gotten this off my chest I can return to a blog filled with humorous antics and adorable pictures-because really, if all my posts were like this, none of ya's would want to keep reading it.

Stay tuned for next time, when I tell the Tale of Fourty-Four Rats.  Though I should probably post some pictures of Kiera's birthday first. Somehow I don't think I can wind the two into one post....but it might be fun to try.....