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Thursday, October 26, 2017

Go Ahead and Get Your Judging Pants On

Today was my son's 12 month well visit. "Well" in the sense that it was scheduled to check his height (70%) and weight (70%) and all that stuff but also ironic in that we walked out with a script for an ear infection, poor kid.

During this visit, I had what I had anticipated would be an all-out battle of a conversation with his pediatrician regarding shots.

SPOILER: My mom gut freaked out at 6 months and told me in no uncertain terms that Cade was not to have anymore shots.

SPOILER #2: It was a really pleasant, positive conversation that just made me love his doctor.

As a 25-yr militant member of the "VACCINATE EVERYONE FOR EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME" club, this was a shock to my brain and spurred months of research on both sides of the aisle for two reasons.

1) I wanted to pinpoint exactly what my fear was, what I anticipated Cade's issue being, and weight the pros and cons.
2) I wanted to assuage that fear, because VACCINATE EVERYONE.

What I found just made me more and more uneasy, I have an idea of what Cade may have experienced, and my fear was fueled.

So at least for this child of mine, there won't be any.

The doctor asked if I'd like to discuss why I was opting out of future vaccinations, and I laid that previous information down for him followed by, "Trust me, man. It freaks even me out because like I said - I used to be that person who would argue with moms on the internet who chose not to vaccinate their kids, call them stupid, and then walk away feeling morally superior."

"You know there's better ways to feel morally superior, right?" He said.

I realize this was his good-humored attempt at participating in the de-escalation of a potentially scary moment for me as I was asserting my newly-arrived mama bear and I appreciate it.

He continued with, "You know, I'm a huge believer in parent instinct. I've had several experiences where moms have come in demanding that I test for crazy diseases and I've told them they are wrong - only to do the testing and it turns out they were absolutely right. So there's a lot to be said for Mom Gut and I don't question it. I would hate to give him a shot and have him experience something adverse and then go, "Oh, yeah, that's probably why we shouldn't have done that." And I honestly believe you're doing what you think is best for your child, however, in the outbreak of an MMR illness I would strongly recommend that you reconsider that single vaccine."

And that was it.

So, yeah. Judge me, I don't care - I believe that vaccines have saved a lot of lives and work perfectly well for so many people. I also believe that there have been an unrecorded number of vaccine-related life altering changes and illness in kids, and a whole host of things that still need to be tested, and I just CAN'T give my kid vaccines. At least not right now. So judge me on that front, and also feel free to judge my previously judgy nature.

Just kidding. I still judge people. So maybe judge me for that.



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