It’s hard to find time

We had to make an unplanned trip to Michigan last week, so I didn’t post anything.

Amy took Max for his 4-month well baby check on Monday. He weighed in at 16 pounds; he’s in the 75th percentile, which means that he weighs more than 75% of babies his age. He’s also 26 1/4 inches tall, 90th percentile. There’s a new set of photos posted on flickr.com

He also had his second series of immunizations. He took it pretty well considering he got poked in the leg 3 times. That night he was not himself; he would get really mad all of a sudden with no apparent reason. I got really worried and did some searching on-line about the side effects of immunizations, which made me even more worried. There’s a lot of heartbreaking stories out there from parents who have written stories and are convinced that the immunizations caused their babies to become very sick and in some cases caused death.

I couldn’t really find any scientific evidence, but saw that Max’s symptoms seemed mild compared to the descriptions of some of the more serious side effects. He didn’t even have a fever, it was mostly just his behavior. He just seemed unsettled, which is unusual for him. This behavior lasted for several days and he got really fussy at night. Tylenol seemed to help, but I still had reservations about giving my baby medication and only gave it to him twice.

I know that doctors do this to protect our babies against some nasty diseases, but it’s hard for a mother to witness. Our babies are so young and I can’t help but wonder why doctors inject them with this stuff when they are so little. I’m not against immunization, but I do question why we are pressured to start immunizations at only 2 months of age, which is when he had his first round of immunizations.

Grandma and Grandpa Jacops visited this weekend and by the time they got here on Friday, Max seemed pretty much back to normal. I’m not so worried anymore.