It doesn't help that now there is so much guilt. You are a bad parent if you don't immunize - think of what would happen if your poor child actually got the disease. But you are a bad parent if you do immunize - why increase your child's risk of autism and other side effects for diseases that have virtually been eradicated? (The current official word is that there is no correlation between immunizations and autism, but that doesn't stop the guilt trip that comes from other parents...)
I know parents who cry every time they take their baby in for shots. While I certainly understand where they are coming from, it never bothered me that much. Maybe it's because everything makes them cry at that age. Or, as another dad whose child lived in the NICU put it to me, once you've seen your child with an IV in his head, what's a little pinprick shot? Or maybe I'm just insensitive. I don't know.
Last week I took Ree to the doctor for her four-year-old check up. We had previously been told that she was good on immunizations until she was 5 and got loaded up to get ready for kindergarten. Little did we know, North Carolina laws have changed, and now they administer all those shots at age 4 since most kids go to pre-K programs. So the poor girl got 4 shots plus a the flu shot mist up her nose. I was not as okay with this.
Ree is a tough kid, and she was okay with just holding my hands while the nurse did her thing. First shot, no problem. Second shot, though, she arched her back and her whole body clenched with pain. Her eyese immediately welled up with tears. Yikes. Although the other two shots were relatively uneventful, t that was just the beginning.
She was sick all weekend. Really run down, awful sick. By Friday night she said her legs hurt, but we figured she was just sore from where she had been jabbed. By Saturday morning, she wasn't walking right and you could tell she muscles and joints were actually achy. She also ran a fever that didn't want to break. Of course we had a family work day at her preschool that day, so all of us were out the door at 7:40 in the morning for a day of family "fun." The poor girl just sat at preschool not wanting to play with any of the other kids whose parents were busy working. (At least the boys had a great time. Michael followed around the older girls trying to get their attention and Leon spent over and hour and a half at one point playing in the pretend kitchen area.)
She did feel a bit better on Sunday night, but then she woke up on Monday covered in a rash. By Tuesday she was starting to feel better, and yesterday she seemed to finally really be on the mend. It's a good thing she is done with shots until 2017, because it may take me that long to accept that this way is "better."
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