“Just curl your toes in pain every few days until she gets the hang of it” 

Yes, the title of this blog post is literally something a doctor, a medical professional, told me. “Just curl your toes in pain every few days until she gets the hang of it,” was said by an ENT when I had sought assistance for a tongue tie that was causing extreme pain when trying to nurse my child. If my husband hadn’t been with me and heard this, there’s no way anyone would believe me when I told the story.

My daughter was 19 days old when a doctor said this to me. But more importantly, I was 19 days postpartum, with a deep desire to breastfeed my child, when a doctor ignored every sign and symptom I shared about a medical need for my child, and instead told me to live in agony. It’s been 1.5 years since this bullshit sentence was spoken to me and I still re-live it like it was yesterday. 

If you’ve had a child, which if you’re reading this my guess is you have, then you know the emotional state you’re in at 19 days postpartum. The vulnerability you have going on from birthing a child is likely still leaving your body in the form of blood, sweat, and tears. You’re probably dealing with vaginal or cesarian pain that’s consuming your mind when you’re not immediately focused on trying to keep the new little life in front of you, alive. You’re living in 1.5 blocks of sleep (that aren’t restful) that leaves you feeling crazy and like your nerves are shot. Your emotions cycle from elation, to sorrow, to joy, to anger, to giddiness, to annoyance, all within the span of five minutes. Then, to be completely tossed to the side and told to just be in pain, when you’re seeking help, is the exact opposite of what should happen. I feel physically angry even writing about this because I still can’t believe it happened.

I’m lucky that I had a support team around me to encourage me to seek a second opinion. I’m lucky that I have an insane amount of resilience that didn’t let that moment break me. I’m lucky that the next doctor I found actually listened and confirmed what I already knew. I’m lucky that I was able to seek help and get to a successful breastfeeding journey. However, this curl your toe moment will forever live rent free in my brain and has become part of the fabric of who I am.

So many times I’ve thought about writing that ENT office a letter regarding the experience, trying to find the words that would get a point across and hopefully help a system, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. If that moment so casually happened with me, I have zero faith that a letter would even matter because my guess is that the culture in that office runs deep.