Mommy goes Hippie

By all intensive purposes, I am a bad atypical Mormon.  I’m not good at lots of the spirituality-based things that my LDS cohorts are, and if you accused me of being a cafeteria-type Mormon (one who picks and chooses what to believe) I probably wouldn’t disagree.  It’s not that I think that’s okay.  Or that I think I know better so I pick and choose what I want to endorse.  It’s that I struggle, I mean really struggle with some things and I do my best to make all intersections of my experiences meet up.  Anyway.  My point is that commonplace aspects of Mormonism to most, are rare and kind of overwhelming to me. 

So.  To say that on an ordinary day sitting amongst the sterile tools and the oversized elephant exam-bed of my pediatrician’s office, I received inspiration, is big.  I mean really big.  I can easily count on one hand the amount of times I’ve experienced anything even remotely close to this.   I don’t know if I should call it inspiration, personal revelation, mother’s intuition, or what.  But what I know is that it was a tangible, visceral feeling that overcame my whole being in a way that was so real that I feel silly even trying to explain it.  I feel like I should have physical proof of the experience.  Instead I’m stuck with insufficient words; intellectually trying to justify an experience that was nothing of the sort.  Everything was normal that day at Charlotte’s check up.  They weighed her, etc.  We talked about her development.  Then the doctor left to go get the nurse for her shots.  And that’s when it happened.  The feeling was that I in no way should let my Charlotte get her vaccines.  Even as I type this I am surprised by the feeling and can’t even begin to make sense of it.   Lyla had all vaccines on schedule and I never gave it a moment’s pause.  Prior to this six-month visit, Lottie too was on schedule.  I’ve never, and I mean NEVER given any credence to the “paranoid” non-vaccinators.  I spent four years as a research analyst.  Unless you were going to show me a randomized controlled study, I wasn’t buying.  I’m also generally a democrat.  I trust the government and believe in the system.  SO they would properly regulate this…..right?  Right?  The fact that my emotions were saying something different from my intellect was troubling to say the least.  But.  I. Could. Not. Deny. It.  So I didn’t.  I quickly made up an excuse to my doctor that we were traveling tomorrow and didn’t want a grumpy baby (which was true) and said I’d be back in  a week for them.  Fully knowing this wasn’t true.  The idea of going against the conventional traditions, taking on new risks and and owning the decision was so foreign to me that I couldn’t even begin to acknowledge the decision I had made.  Not to mention  telling our Pediatrician (who happens to be very supportive and wonderful).  Actually, I couldn’t think of telling ANYONE.  So for two weeks I didn’t tell a soul.  During that time my inclination grew and I felt stronger and stronger that this wasn’t the right thing for Lottie.  For some reason, I kept thinking, I just need to get her to one and she’ll be okay.  I began feeling so confident and sure about my feelings that I eventually felt enough sane to tell Todd about it.  I shouldn’t have been surprised that he was very supportive and immediately said that he trusts my intuition and doesn’t doubt it for one minute [I am so lucky to have Todd].  That gave me peace and I just decided to not think about the subject for a period of time and trust that when the time was right I would know (but in the back of my mind thinking that if I hadn’t felt anything eventually I would have to do the research and make an educated decision…possibly doing a delayed schedule). 

After that day I had a number of strange experiences that didn’t add up to anything at first.  I rarely watch the news but saw a story on the dangers in baby formula (which should have been completely uninteresting to me given that neither of my kids have ever had formula even once).  I read an article online about the chemicals that are in Johnsons and Johnson’s baby products.  I got a coupon in the mail for a new “natural” product that Johnson’s and Johnson’s were making.  All very random, seemingly minor events that were the stirrings of a change for me.   It’s hard to describe it all without sounding slight crazy but I feel like the universe provided me a number of chance encounters that all added up to a very special lesson for me to learn.  A lesson about being mindful.  About making conscious decisions on behalf of the beautiful souls I’ve been entrusted with.  I’ve always been one to use the old “everyone else does it” argument to calm fears and challenge opposing views.  Now I realize how dumb that was.  That Todd and I are responsible for decisions me make; conscious or not so I better make ones I’m comfortable with.  Walking out of that office gave me power.  Power to trust my intuition.  Power to make less-popular decisions if Todd and I feel like it’s the right one.  Power to THINK.  This isn’t a story about condemning vaccines and all things modern to live off of tree sap .  It’s a story about how a prompting, some baby soap, and toxic formula changed the way I make decisions.  A story about how I came to think twice.  I hope to keep telling this story as I continue down my path of mindful living.  It’s sprinkled with rooms that smell of vinegar, babies donning cloth diapers, homemade versions of our favorite processed food and a million and one applications of coconut oil.  I’ll try to write as I happily step and misstep down this very foreign, very exciting path. 

 

….p.s.  Charlotte has since gotten the majority of her vaccines on a delayed schedule in case you were worried about it :)

p.p.s  Not sure why but I love the sight of their cloth diapers on the line