de consultatiebureauverhaal

Starting to cooperate with the consultatiebureau was one of the meeting points with bureaucracy. The consultatiebureau is a place where kids get their injections and they are regularly measured whether they are growing according to the norm. This office comes by the first week after birth and they take the so called 'heelprick'. It’s basically a blood test by sticking a needle into baby’s heel. For God’s sake can’t they find a better place? The heel is full of nerves and damn sensitive.

It belongs to the story that I cannot imagine worse than the sight of a needle going through the skin. It’s like when the teacher’s nail is scratching the black board, or something similar. It’s a nightmare. So, this lady came by to do the heelprick. She was a bit clumsy with Timur, but I was patient. This had to happen. We are part of the system and we had to conform the rules (I thought). We put Timur’s heel into some warm water. After this the lady asked me to breastfeed and in the meantime she stuck the needle into Timur’s heel. Timur started crying. I felt immediately that something was wrong. Feeding and pain at the same time? Linking a positive to a negative experience? What the hell??? Maybe the foot wasn’t in the warm water long enough, because this nice lady had to repeat this exercise 3!!! times. At this point I couldn’t listen to Timur’s crying and I started crying myself. This was the first time that I heard him crying because of pain. My heart was bleeding…

Mathijs had busy days; working 3 days at ING and teaching 2 evenings. He had both that day. So, he took a nap between the two jobs. I woke him up and asked him to handle the rest, because I wasn’t able. I closed the door. I didn’t want to see or hear anything anymore. It turned out that the blood was still not enough and Timur had to be pricked for the 4th time!!! We went to a different consultatiebureau after this, where we belong to the odd ones, because we are critical about injections. We don’t want to let Timur be injected with stuff we don’t even know what it is. It was also confirmed by a good friend of ours doing IMT (Integrative Manual Therapy) that babies immune system is not ready for these injections. We don’t want any more pricks before Timur is 1,5 years old.