MMR and more....

...so we took the plunge again. Each time I give Simon an immunization I hold my breath waiting for something weird to happen to him and when nothing happens I am always incredibly relieved and shocked at the same time. The other day Simon had his first MMR, yes the one scheduled for 18 months, yes the one many have tried to link to the development of autism in children, yes the one loaded with preservatives and horrible chemicals that do not need to be coarsing through the bloodstream of my little boy. But I did it anyway, along in the past year with three DTaP and one Hib, which resulted in one boy with a mom in NH on rotation at the ER with a fever of 105.5, but that's a story for another day.

I wrestle with this. Obviously. I feel like I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. If anything happened to my son because of an immunization I had willingly given to him I would never forgive myself. Likewise if he ever was infertile from contracting the mumps or hospitalized with whooping cough I would also never forgive myself. Sometimes being a mom is so hard. Fortunetly I think we have the worlds best family doc (well...except for those of you I am training with!) and she has been incredibly supportive of our very delayed and very selective immunization schedule. I just could not stomach pumping my very small, premature son full of nasty things when he was fresh out. No way.

When I was eight months pregnant I went to this incredible scary talk about the dangers of immunizations and why we should not be vaccinating our children. The next day I sat through a lecture on the dangers of NOT immunizing our children on my pediatrics core rotation. Which left my very pregnant brain swimming and seeking out more information and occasionally in tears due to not being able to predict the future and know what was best for my son.

So we struggle, we did MMR the other day due to an outbreak of mumps in our community. Simon handled it so well, he is still a little crabby, but no tears during the shot itself. He has carried on with his everyday life while I analyze his expanding vocabulary every day watching for any new defecits or delays, and check on him in the middle of the night to make sure he's not an inferno....see this is what happens when anxiety goes untreated for too long...

In other news, the house went under contract with another buyer. Sad for us. We got a call today from a friend who has a lovely home we have coveted for years who is going to sell! Horray for us, sad for her. We'll put in an offer hopefully before the weekend! I don't think this one can be jinxed (famous last words) so I'm letting myself get a little excited!