This information is deeply personal and provides a raw personal glimpse into my life. More so than anything else I've written before. Please keep that in mind while reading it because it was incredibly difficult to write and release. However, I believe there is a reason I have this platform, I'm just not sure what it is yet.

"It's hard to find a good pediatrician. I really like you guys and I would like you to stay"

That's the greeting we received from our current pediatrician at Zazu's 12 month check up a few days ago. Correction- the first thing she said was actually, "Hey little guy! How are you doing buddy?" I said "she's a girl."

It's not uncommon for people to mistake our daughter for a boy because 1. She has short hair and 2. We don't dress her in tutus and dresses every day. Unfortunately, In our overly gendered society we must categorize everything. So she seems to be a boy.

Most societal robots cannot compute this.
No hair *robot shuffle*
no dress * robot shuffle*
Danger Will Robison danger!!! * head explodes*

But the doctors head didn't explode she just turned red. She glanced at her chart and said "of course she is I'm sorry about that. " it was a genuine apology and a somewhat easy mistake. Then she quickly went back to the naughty parents. We missed her last appointment. Zazu didn't see the doc at all for the nine month check up because our car wouldnt start AND my phone broke. I asked my husband to reschedule and he didn't. Husbands don't do what you ask them too. However, I heard him on the phone cancelling it. Then the person in the background told him he needs to call back to reschedule. Unless he was on the phone with Pizza Hut then he cancelled the appointment.


Nevertheless, her pediatrician said we were a no call no show and preceded to tell us we missed our 6 month appointment as well. Now that one got me. I was going to let the first one pass but we actually came and saw another doctor so I told her. Then she corrected me by showing me the appointment book......... I don't know how many " ..." I should put here because I actually had to pause for a second. The rule here is if you kiss three appointments then you are kicked out of the office. It's important to get this corrected so that we don't have to find another pediatrician. I knew I was right so I paused but also I don't like being corrected when I'm right, call me crazy but when people incorrectly "correct" me I always take a pause break to make sure my next response isn't out of line. So, I waited until she left the room and confirmed with my husband that we came to Zazu's 6 month appointment. He confirmed. I'm going to speed this story up a bit so you can get the point of this all. What happened was we missed her 4 month appointment because the office called and said Zazu's insurance wasn't pulling up. We actually came to the appointment on time and sat in the office while the front desk assistant "checked" and "confirmed" she had no insurance. Then I missed the appointment while sitting in the office confirming that she in fact had insurance. I'm not sure that's really my fault. Computer error? Either way it shouldn't count against us.
After some back and forth with the Doctor she said we can work it out with the front desk. Most importantly though, she stated "it's hard to find a good pediatrician and I really want to see you guys stay." Again.

This exchange was annoying but the office made a mistake. The mistake hasn't been corrected yet but im sure it will be. This whole thing made me evaluate her statement though. During this appointment my daughter received her vaccinations. As her parent I have to evaluate why I trust a doctor, and an office, that has made so many mistakes up to this point with my daughters life. They are injecting my child with diseases. I understand that everyone makes mistakes and that human error happens in all fields. However, this is the one field that you don't want any mistakes to be made, but they do. I'm a realist. There were already mistakes made on my daughter when she was born but this wasn't with the pediatrician. Another pediatrician in the office I'm currently with is the one who corrected the mistake and made an attempt to mitigate the damage done. (But not this one.)

This pediatrician has been pleasant. Nonetheless I've had to convince her of everything that has happened with my child up to this point. I've also had to do a fair amount of research to confirm two different conditions that she has in order to get any real solutions. This may be common practice. I'm not sure. My daughter is only one and I've personally only met one doctor I trust with myself. Maybe doctors, including pediatricians, just aren't trusting of their patients. Maybe they have seen so many anxious parents and hypochondriac moms that they just don't trust any of them. However, I still wonder how hard is it to find a good pediatrician. I don't think she should have posed this question to me because at the very least I feel it would be fairly easy to find an equally good pediatrician.

I'm sure I can find a pediatrician who

A. Doesn't know how to pronounce my daughters name
B. Believes me about any issues my daughter has only when I provide overwhelming evidence and extensive research. ( not web MD, but scholarly journals, medical encyclopedias etc)
C. Doesn't know if she is a boy or a girl
D. Can't keep track of her appointments

I wasn't thinking about leaving this office but now I have to evaluate that. Our pediatrician isn't necessarily bad, but is pleasant really enough? Is that all we get? Pleasant. She seems to be a good person but how good of a doctor? These are questions I hadn't asked myself. Is it really that hard to find a good pediatrician? And who says you're good in the first place?

​I honestly wish there was more information on post-partum hair loss. Or possibly that I was more prepared for the fistfuls, literally not figuratively, of hair that comes out of your head. I think it would have had a better understanding if someone, anyone would have explained that hair continues to fall out for months after birth.  
 
Seriously no one I mean no one. No friends, family, etc. talked about post-partum hair loss. I wasn't warned from a loved one. I’d heard of post-partum hair loss from a random you tube video I watched about birthing and after baby. This person did not go into any detail about it. She said she experienced very little hair loss and this was shortly after giving birth. So after my baby I did a quick post birth check to see if my hair was still on my head. "Yep still there", so I'm in the clear right!  No, I wasn't. My hair didn't fall out when I expected it to. 
 
When you think post-partum hair loss it's natural to think RIGHT after baby right? Not correct. My daughter is 6 months and my hair is still falling out. 
 
First of all, if you’re like me, it took a while to be able to seriously get in the shower and wash your hair well. The baby is crying, you have to breast feed for what feels like every 5 minutes, and you’re a walking zombie. If you have 15 minutes to yourself you will want to use it sleeping. My showers were so short and infrequent (embarrassing but true) that I just didn't have any time to really detangle my hair. I'm a natural gal so this is a seriously necessary part of my wash routine. My first real hair wash was 1.5 months after my daughter was born. This may be longer than most would have had to wait but it takes me at least 45 min to deep condition and detangle. I have a TON of hair. 
 
When I finally got into my hair to detangle it, it was so knotted I had dread locks everywhere. I'm so embarrassed to share this but I have to share because I would have avoided this if someone properly warned me.