Last week I shared the post with you called “This Mama’s Heart and The Baby’s.”
What I didn’t share with you all was the reaction to our decision that taught me a bigger lesson in the big picture.
Later that week I spoke to my grandma – who just had to bring up whether or not we had been to our Pediatric Cardiologist appointment yet and what they said. Really wanting to avoid this conversation with her I told her that we made the decision that we weren’t going. I told her that after talking to my cardiologist, and having the strong feeling in my heart and gut that everything is fine – that we decided not to go and that we would get her checked after she was born.
Oh goodness – was she opinionated about our decision.
She went on and on that technology nowadays could pick up on if she had the problem I did (which my cardiologist said due to compensation in the womb they wouldn’t know but when I addressed that she argued), I told her that I didn’t have a feeling that anything was wrong and she shot back with “neither did your mother Kristina, and look at that!” I used the argument that my mom didn’t know to have a heart condition on her heart and mind! I was the first ever in the family.
Finally frustrated, and feeling beaten I hung up the phone and called my mom.
The person that lived through my situation with me when I was young – the one that if I was really doing something wrong would straight out tell me.
After the phone rang, and rang she answered – a few moments into the conversation I broke with a “Have you talked to your mother today?!”
“….No Why?”
I shattered, I broke down and told her all about how apparently in my grandma’s eyes I’m making terrible parenting decisions, etc. etc.
However, my mom didn’t feel the same as my grandma, she felt the same way we did. She told me that she would take the word of my cardiologist because what was wrong with me couldn’t be detected in the womb, and that frankly she was frustrated with my OB for making a huge deal out of all of it when there isn’t anything to be stressing about right now –and that I would know, my intuition would set me off if there was something.
My mom supported our decision entirely, which made me feel better since she had lived it.
Once Ryan arrived home, I shattered into a million tiny pieces. Sure, my mom’s support made me feel a ton better, and I knew I had my dad’s – but the conversation I had with my grandma rubbed me the wrong way – it was my first encounter with someone second guessing my decisions as a mama and it shredded this mama heart of mine. I knew that decisions we make weren’t always going to make everyone else happy – but already, such brutal opinions and feedback?
Ryan was furious about what was said to me, and especially how it was said.
Finally that was when I then realized that it’s our family – our daughter – and the decisions we make are our business, judge or not judge, as long as we are confident in our decisions that’s really the important part of the matter.
Because the fact of the matter is – our family, our family of three, is the priority on the front line and the decisions we make, our ours to make and they are our decisions.
So the next time it was brought up my grandma I simply stated just that –
that although I respect her opinion – this is our family and we are making the best decision for our daughter, and we would appreciate that being respected. Not another word has been said since.
Because I knew, our decisions were right and I knew they were just – in our hearts we are confident in the decisions that we made, and with that – we don’t need anyone else’s approval.
