Update: Shots and Pulled Teeth Oh MY!

Mom and baby are doing well today. Nora is such a champ when it comes to vaccinations. She took a long nap yesterday afternoon, but slept well last night and is her old, cheery self again today.

I like to partially credit her lack of symptoms from vaccines to the alternate schedule we're following. I did a lot of reading before choosing the immunization schedule that I thought was best for us.

Although studies have not been able to confirm over-vaccinating or vaccinating too soon is directly related to the spike in children that develop autism after birth, I figure it is a risk I'd prefer not to take. Additionally, I figure the less foreign substances we introduce to her sensitive system at once, the less hard it's going to be for her to quickly build the antibodies she needs. Coincidentally, or maybe not so coincidentally, she has never had a fever or negative symptoms related to any of her vaccines.

It will take a little longer for her to become fully vaccinated, but she is still meeting all of the state school requirements, and the only shots I've chosen to leave out at this time is chicken pox and HPV. With the chicken pox, we will try to introduce the virus naturally, but if she hasn't had it by the time she starts school, we will likely go ahead with the vaccine. Other drastic differences between our schedule and the CPC's recommended schedule include delaying Hep B until she is 2 1/2 and breaking up the MMR into 3 seperate shots for the first go-round.

Our schedule is very similar to Dr. Sears alternate schedule, with a few modifications we had to make for her to start day care. She never gets more than 2 pokes in a single visit, but we do go every month instead of every other for the first 7 months. After the first year, it spaces out to every 5-6 months. She will be fully vaccinated (except for the Tdap and Meningococcal, which aren't introduced until the teen years) by the time she is 4 1/2. If you're interested in seeing our complete schedule, post a comment here with your e-mail address, or send me an e-mail to akotecki@gmail.com.


And as for me, I'm still in quite a bit of pain and my face highly resembles a chipmunk. It's been nice having Mimi here to help with the bear.