We have a doctors appointment this morning. By ‘we’ I mean both girls. Shanna is just getting a shot (Polio) and Calli is getting a well baby check and a shot (DTaP). It didn’t occur to me until last night that I am a complete fucking moron for scheduling shots for both of them in one day by myself. Ugh. I think it didn’t occur to me until last night because originally our plan had been to follow Shanna’s path and not vaccinate Calli until she was older. But you see… we are having this epidemic… Damnit! I have always said that if factors were different in Shanna’s life we would have made different vaccine choices. Well, things are different for Calli and we are going to make different choices. We spend a lot of time with the anti-vax crowd and that just wasn’t true when Shanna was little. I’m not risking many months of misery for my tiny little baby. To be clear here–I think Calli’s chance of dying of Pertussis is 0 with or without the vaccine. But I feel like it would be inhumane to risk her suffering for months. There were 257 new cases in the state in the last week and 20 of them were in my county. That’s still not that high… but it’s high enough for me to pay attention to the fact that I go out constantly with her and she doesn’t exactly have a highly developed immune system.
As I’m worrying about it this morning Shanna is narrating to her doll what the process of getting a shot is like. It’s so interesting listening to her thought processes about things. I feel blessed by how verbal she is because I get to know what she is thinking. It’s amazing seeing how much blind faith she has in me and in the things I tell her. If I tell her that this shot is necessary to keep her healthy she believes me. She will pass that on to whomever she talks to as if it the gospel truth. It’s humbling. I feel like I have to try extra hard to have integrity in my words because to her there is no one in the world who has more authority than me. Anything and everything I do is what I am supposed to do. Scary. That’s a lot of pressure. I need to get a handle on my frustration with life because I don’t want to model this kind of behavior. Not to someone who trusts me so much.
This parenting gig is intense. Sometimes I feel so strongly about my kids that I feel like I am going to choke on the feelings. It’s amazing.
I cannot BELIEVE you would ever DARE to let some doctor STAB YOUR PRECIOUSES WITH POISON! That’s all that vaccination is- POISON AND DISEASE AGENTS! You are…
Oh, wait, this is a sanity-only post?
Sorry, my bad.
But seriously, I think it’s awesome that you’re making well-informed, intelligent, amendable health choices for your family. I have no desire to have children of my own, but you regularly remind me of how I would want to go about raising them if I did.
Big, fat, stamp of approval:)
It’s all good. You have the best of intentions and do the best you can. But you are human. As to scheduling them for the same day, meh. No biggie as I recall.
You can take preventative measures using herbs, homeopaths, etc. to keep them from getting something. Vaccines aren’t immunities, they only provide a slim chance that you may not get the disease. For example, the Chicken Pox vaccine is only 33% effective.
I applaud your open mindedness and knowledge seeking. But I will always be anti-vaccine.
Not sure if you know, but there is a cream they can put on the arm before they give the shot so it hurts less. Most dr’s offices carry it and all you have to do is call in advance and request it.
Lidocaine. I used to keep it around the house for when I was getting a tattoo. That’s a good suggestion, actually. Thanks!
I’m very comfortable with our decision to vaccinate. I like to travel and I intend to take the girls to third world countries where medical care is not immediately available. We do not do all vaccines (Chicken Pox for example…) just ones where I feel the reward outweighs the risks. I’ve done a rather lot of research. 🙂