Decisions

Life is full of choices and decisions.  The pink flip flops or the blue?  Mexican or Italian?  Regular or decaf?  These are some tough choices we have to make.  Day in and day out.  Choices.  Decisions.

But then you become parents and the choices become even more difficult.  Breast milk or formula?  Circumcision or not?  Co-sleep or not?  To vaccinate or not?

Vaccinations.  Ugh.  Such a frightening topic.  There are lots of discussions about the MMR vaccination.  Yes?  No?  Autism?  Break it up?  Do it all at once?  Why so many shots?  Is there mercury in the shots?  If you don’t do it, your child could die.  The ultimate in decisions.  If you do get it, can it lead to autism?  FAR better than death, but a terrible outcome.  Choices.  Decisions.

And now there’s the flu shot.  More specifically H1N1.  Courtney has had the 1st half of the flu shot (they break it up into 2 doses for kids her age) and will get the other half around her 1st birthday (Happy birthday baby girl!).  But the H1N1 vaccine is scary.  It hasn’t really been tested.  I mean, it has but not for very long.  If someone said to me, can we use your baby in H1N1 vaccine trials, I’d have to say no.  Who said yes?  And we may know the short term outcomes of those trials but what about the long term effects?  And the vaccine has mercury in it.  More specifically thimerosal, a mercury preservative.  Which may, or may not, lead to autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.  No one can prove it does or it doesn’t.   Anyway, the H1N1 vaccine has shipped and should be at C’s pediatrician at some point this month.  And we need to decide if she should get it or not.  A 7 year-old Georgia boy died yesterday from the swine flu.  A 14 year-old girl died the other day in Texas.  Neither of them had symptoms of anything else, just the swine flu.

Courtney has another cold.  This is her third cold in about a month.  She seems to be a germ magnet.  Does this mean that she’d be more likely to contract swine flu?  This is a choice I don’t want to have to make.  But I will.  We will.  I heard on the news that if the vaccine for the swine flu had been developed and tested just a little faster, it would actually be IN the regular flu vaccine.  But the regular flu vaccine has been given and tested for years and years.  If I don’t give it to her, the unthinkable could happen.  If I do give it to her, the unknown could happen.  I’ve heard some people say that the swine flu itself isn’t really that bad.  It’s a rough few days but then it goes away.  Slight fever, runny nose, difficulty breathing.  That’s what the mom in Texas thought too, difficulty breathing.  And her baby girl died.

We’ll probably do it.  Get her the vaccine.  Paul and I will have to talk about it.  Make the decision.  Choose to vaccinate or not.  It’s taken me weeks to choose a Halloween costume, for crying out loud, and she’s only going to wear it for a couple of hours.  This shot is way bigger than that dumb costume.  Choices.  Decisions.