First things first: I don't like going to the doctor.

Check-up appointments are horrible to me, my vaccination card lies tattered in some drawer, I try to ignore colds.

When it comes to diseases, I'm one of the suppressors and live by the motto: With medication, a cold lasts seven days - without a week.

Anke Schipp

Editor in the "Life" department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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However, when it comes to my children, I've changed.

Ever since they were born, I've had worries that I didn't even know before, scenarios form in my head that won't let me sleep, I waver between worry and hysteria.

With bliss comes helplessness

The feeling started on Day 1, when I was standing in a sterile hospital room next to a trundle bed on which lay a small ball of yarn, waving its walnut-sized squishy hands in the air.

There he lay, the new earthling, small, helpless, in need of protection.

And since then, in addition to great happiness, I have also felt a certain helplessness and the feeling: there are a lot of things that can happen, that you can do wrong, that threaten this little creature.

The first night the child got the hiccups.

The whole body vibrated with every hiccup and it didn't stop at all.

In the still darkness of the sickroom they seemed like gunshots.

At 3 a.m. I rang the night nurse and said in a dramatic tone, "The baby has the hiccups."

I've asked myself this question hundreds of times since then: Is this normal now?

The fever?

The redness?

The cough?

The teary eyes?

But there is no red button with which I can quickly ring for the night nurse.

Even during the check-ups at the pediatrician, I began to interpret the doctor's looks and to interpret fluctuations in the tone of voice as alarm signals.

I put every comment on the gold scales.

"Your child now weighs 3600 grams!" It was said at the U3.

Immediately it started working in my head: maybe that's not enough?

Might I need to supplement?

I carefully asked: "Uh, and what does that mean now?" The doctor raised his head briefly: "Nothing, everything is wonderful."

That's how it went on and on.

U4: "Your child's head is quite big." - "What?" - "Don't worry, everything is normal." Then came the many questions.

U5, U6, U7, U 8: Does your child eat properly?

Does it sleep through?

Has it turned yet?

Does it start to run?

Hear it?

Does it speak?

Every check-up is a small test - and the fear that something could be wrong that you had previously overlooked.