There are several things vexing me this week.
The first is vaccinations. Miss M. has her "two month" appointment on Friday. When we originally scheduled it when she was two weeks old, I was so distracted that I didn't notice that it somehow got scheduled closer to three months than two. I'm not at all concerned about the timing, but the issue of whether to stick to the AAP timeline for vaccinations has me tied in knots.
No one can definitively tell me if my child will be okay no matter what option I choose. There are no firm statistics to base my decision on. Let's face it--the decision of whether to vaccinate or not all comes down to statistics. What are the chances my child will get rotovirus? If my child gets it, what is the chance it will be serious? What is the chance there will be some sort of life-threatening complication? If I DO vaccinate, what are the chance of a side effect? What is the side effect? What are the chances the side effect will be permanent? If I vaccinate, should I vaccinate for all seven diseases , as recommended by the AAP? Should we do combo vaccines to minimize shots? Or does that up the ante that something will go wrong?
It's all about playing the odds, really, and I've never been all that hot in Vegas.
Currently, I'm pro-vaccine for seven vaccines recommended at the two month visit. It's HOW to give them that is troubling me. I don't want to do seven vaccines at once. That seems like too much. But I'm leaning toward Pentacel, which automatically combines five of them. Is it worth it to just delay two? If I'm going to delay two, shouldn't I really delay three, so that they're broken out four and three (I plan to do some shots every month for the first seven months, alternating shots every other month). The problem is that if we go with Pentacel, we end up with just one shot at every visit. If we DON'T go with Pentacel, we end up with one shot one month and three shots the next month. That sounds miserable. And is any of this more or less safe for my child? No one can really tell me. (And if you are one of those people who fervently believes that vaccinations are the work of the devil, please understand that while I respect your opinion, I think that given my own personal circumstances, my child's risk of getting one of these diseases warrants getting vaccinated). I'm just not sure what to do. I've read The Vaccine Book , and the updates on Dr. Sears' website, but I still can't make up my mind.
The next thing bugging me? My bras. My boobs are a lot larger than they've ever been (I'm probably a full B or maybe a small C now--none of my work shirts fit. . .not sure what to do about that other than buy new ones, but that's a whole other problem). I've loved my nursing bras for lounging around the house (I have the Japanese Weekend Hugs bra, a nursing tank by Bravado, two nursing tanks by Medela, and another bra by Majamas). But as I've gotten out and about more, I've realized that what works well for lounging around the house and nursing a baby doesn't necessarily provide the support necessary for being a working woman. Plus, it still has to work for pumping three times a day in my office. I don't want to have to entirely disrobe to pump. The tanks provide more support, but they aren't the right style/fit to wear alone under my suits. Suggestions welcome!
The final thing that's causing me angst? My MIL. She did the usual New England retiree thing and headed for a warmer client for part of the winter, but she's back now. The last interaction we had before she left ended with me chastising her for having her mouth on the baby's hands. She clearly recalls this, because she mentioned it on the telephone recently. I haven't had to deal with her recently, though, because she's been gone. She returned a week or so ago, and came by to visit a few days ago. And guess what she did immediately upon arrival? Yeah, really. She doesn't really seem to give a damn that Miss M. is too young to be vaccinated against things like Rotovirus, or that nasty bugs like Rotovirus aren't killed by handwashing. I am at the point where I simply want to limit her access to Miss M. If she can't be respectful of our choices, then she doesn't get to see her. T. agrees with me in theory on the fact that his mother is utterly disrespectful when it comes to our parenting choices, and he agrees that she should not be allowed to be alone with Miss M. I'm not sure that he's going to agree about limiting his mother's access to Miss M. with one of us present, though. I don't know any other way to get through to her, though.
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