Triggered

As you know from last post, DD has been sick. After yesterday's rough day and shameless whine, the day ended with DD's daycare calling and saying she was irritated "down there" and was standing in the corner of the classroom screaming at anyone who tried to come near her. At least my girl knows how to enforce her boundaries!!! So clearly, round 2 of antibiotics really did a number on her. She ended up sick from both ends and a very angry looking yeast infection. Poor kid. Picked her up at daycare and she was definitely uncomfortable. 5 minutes after we got home, DD said she pooped and asked me to change her. I had no idea what excitement was in store. It appears she exploded in her pants....ugh. It was everywhere and on everything. *sigh*

This morning, she woke up with a 102.3 fever. I pumped her up with motrin and brought her to work with me til I could get her into the Dr. Thank God for the portable DVD player. We've watched Thumbelina about 8 times today. She was very uncomfortable in my office, crotch grabbing and all. Well, a co-worker came in to tell me something, points to DD who was behind my chair and he says "Ummm....naked?" I look at DD and she's standing there with pants and diaper around her ankles, rubbing her "shiney" Oh my! (BTW, that is what she calls it. I tried to teach her the real name and that was all she could pronounce at the time. I thought it was so cute, we kept that nickname for it!)

So we go to the Dr and it's a male Dr. I thought about it because I had the opportunity to take her to a female Dr in another office but I like this male Dr and he's been seeing DD through all of this recent illness so I felt like he was the best choice even though I know it's very difficult for me to watch a male Dr checking out DD's private parts. I will never forget watching her first exam as a little 4 pound preemie and the Dr doing that part of the exam. I thought I was going to haul off and slug him!! I think my blood pressure shot off the charts at that moment.

In any case, in the Dr's office today, DD was HIGHLY cranky. She did not feel good, she had just fallen asleep in the car about 10 minutes earlier and was over-tired. So just walking in the door was full of drama and crying. I got her into the exam room and was calmly explaining to her that the Dr was going to have to look at her shiney. I had her almost calm enough to let me get her pants off when the Dr walked in and she broke out in tears again. Unfortunately it came down to the two of us holding her down and wrestling her to get a look. (Insert Panic Attack) I felt like the biggest creep. I know we had to do it but then I started feeling like I betrayed her by not asking the Dr to give me another few minutes to calm her down and prepare her. I felt like I gave in to self imposed guilt that they squeezed me into the schedule and, out of respect for HIS time, I hurt my baby. When he was done with a very quick look, DD pulled her knees to her chest and turned her back to both of us, sobbing. I mean like can't-catch-her-breath sobbing. My heart was breaking. She would not let me touch her. I had to give her space til she would let me hug her and then she just clung to me sobbing for a solid 5 minutes til I could even get her pants pulled up. I had to carry her out of the office. I traumatized her. :o(

So on the drive home, I got to thinking.....here was this child who not 2 hours earlier was standing naked in the middle of my office grabbing herself without a care in the world. Yet in the privacy of the Dr's office, even with me there, it was a horror show. And I thought about the amount of seduction, pre-meditation and evil intent that goes into coercing a child into the willingness to participate, or even just tolerate, being abused. What kind of sick, backwards patience and unspeakable devious planning is brewing. Even my 3 year old daughter has the natural boundary to want to protect herself. What kind of monster it takes to chip away at that instinct day by day and steal an entire aspect of an innocent soul. It makes me sick to my stomach.