A Mother Knows Best

Kid 3 has an ear infection. I must admit, I have never been up all night with a sick kid, other than what I take care of at the hospital. I have been truly blessed. Kid 3 has had sleep patterns the last couple of nights consistent with a newborns, up every couple of hours. She even was awake from 3:00-4:00 am the other night, bouncing between me and B, slapping each of us just enough in the face every few minutes to surface us from the light sleep we were drifting into.
It has always been hard for me to decide when to take my children into see the Dr. I have always been taught to identify the source of infection, so when I had Kid 1, I was quick to rush him to the Dr. to "identify" what it was. If it was viral, great, I knew it; if it was bacterial, even better because there would be an end in sight. With each kid, I have come to learn that most things are viral. I no longer see the need to take them in with every little fever. I can play the waiting game. Maybe it has something to do with the fact I have played that game before, waiting with each child for their unpredictable entry into the world.
My dilemma comes when I think they have an ear infection. I think it all stems back to when I was a child and suffered ear infections frequently. I can still remember two of them quite vividly. Both of them were when my family was on trips, and both of them brought so much pain on my little body that I can remember laying curled up so tightly in the fetal position with warm washcloths on my ears, crying. I even ruptured an ear drum with one of those infections. I think if I can help my kid to avoid any such pain, I will. I know the current literature on ear infections states that treatment is not necessary, but I beg to differ. If I had to make any comparison to the kind of pain I had when I ruptured an ear drum I would have to compare it to that of my post-op tonsillectomy course. And that is pain I don't want my own children to suffer.
So with time, I have come to trust my "maternal instinct". Every mom knows when there kid doesn't feel good, and they want to make them feel better, by nature. If it requires a little extra TLC, so be it. If it requires a trip to the Dr. or ER, it will happen. If it requires asking a mother at the bedside of a patient what she thinks is going on with her own child, I will listen. But more than anything, if it requires trusting that inner feeling, that is the source I will be trusting. They don't call it "A Mother's Intuition" for nothing.