One more vaccine down

Stunt baby, originally uploaded by jessicafm.

I won't lie -- this vaccine appointment made me nervous in the past few days. In order to get the Measles/Mumps/Rubella (MMR) vaccine, because it's egg based, we had to take the Davey and a couple doses of the vaccine to Davey's allergist. Even though I want Davey to have vaccinations and I don't buy in to the scare of MMR causing Autism, that creepy thought was still in the back of my mind. That, on top of knowing we were having the allergist give the vaccine because of the worry of an allergic reaction was wearing on my worry nerve.

In the end, it all went fine. We went to the allergist's with Davey and the vaccine. They put us in an exam room with toys for Davey to play with for the duration of the long visit. First they did a skin test with 3 scratches: distilled water, histamine and a diluted vaccine. Then we waited for half an hour to see if he reacted. Nope -- the only reaction was to the histamine (a control) and not to the diluted vaccine. Then, on the other arm, they did a very small injection of the full-strength vaccine just under the skin and waited for half an hour. Again, no allergic reaction. Then, after the doctor checked him out, the nurse gave him the full dose of vaccine in his upper thigh. Ouch, that was a lot of fluid to inject. Poor Davey.

After the first pricks with the skin test, Davey shied away from the nurse. By the second shot, he shook his head, "no," when she went towards his other arm. By the time it came to the real vaccine, there were two (very nice) nurses and he was struggling to get away from them. Poor little guy. That said, he didn't cry very long at all after each ordeal and was a total trooper.

On the way home, he was asleep really quickly, as he'd missed his nap earlier in the day and it was 3:30. Mark and I needed coffee, so we stopped for a few minutes to get coffee for ourselves and I picked up a small tablet of dark (80% cacao) chocolate for a post-ordeal treat for Davey. He loved it, of course.

He seemed a bit cranky by the time we got home. We think he's also teething, based on more drool and sticking his fingers in his mouth the past couple days. So just in case, I gave him some baby Motrin (which he loves) and he got much happier within 15 minutes. Then he ate a big dinner of pasta e fagioli, a tangerine, half a container of soy yogurt with cereal and a bunch of soy milk. Then he ran around the house dancing, playing with us and laughing. That's our boy!

Phew, I'm glad THAT'S over!