Too Careful.

If I hear one more person try to advise me to "let the kid cry -- it's not going to kill her," I just might scream.

My reticence to leave her crying in the arms of someone else while I remove myself from the room has nothing to do with attachment parenting, or her being over-sensitive, or me being overprotective. 

All I can do in order to keep my tongue in check is to remind myself that others don't have the slightest clue what it's like to have to deal with the consequences of allowing her to get ratcheted up.  Maybe I should explain it to everyone in a way that put them in my position.

Imagine you're handing your kid over to a trustworthy, capable adult and walking away. The kid starts to cry.  You tell yourself that it's just a "mommy attachment phase", and keep walking.

Kid doesn't feel well.  Has had multiple stomach surgeries and has issues with keeping food down.  Kid cries so hard that she throws up.  Since she has low muscle tone and difficulty coordinating her swallowing, she gags on some of the vomit, panics, and breathes it into her lungs.  Mom has no idea that she has done this.  

When the stomach flora in her lungs sets up as infection/pneumonia, she'll likely end up in the hospital where she'll likely lose more weight that she can't afford to lose because the infection affects her appetite.  Then, if her infection is managed, we get to go home and put a tube in her nose and tape on her face every night so the damage to her lungs doesn't let her oxygen saturation get too low while she sleeps, damaging her further.  

So yeah, maybe she won't die from crying.

Maybe we'll just get to go home with another shiny piece of medical equipment that complicates her life and disturbs her sleep even more.

Oh -- you mean like the one we went home with a couple of months ago after a random crying/choking/aspiration pneumonia episode?

Hmm?

......

Okay.  I think I'm calmer now.

And now I've explained myself without walking off in tears or isolating us.

I'm seriously trying to forebear.  I am.

I'm not trying to embarrass anyone or even get an apology.  I'm explaining my actions so maybe we can have some quiet understanding on such matters instead of me nursing  resentment in my heart.

That is all today.