There are so many things I know I will forget if I don't write them down. What a shame that would be, when I've had some of the best, sweetest moments of my life these last couple months.
Quincy was such a tiny little thing when she was born. When we put her in her "coming home" outfit, which was newborn sized, the little leggings were giant on her teeny waist. I remember she cried while mommy and daddy tried to dress her, it was hard to put clothes on a baby who was so seemingly fragile. She weighed 5 lbs 10 oz when we left the hospital. Her newborn jammies were so big on her, we had to roll up the sleeves. One night, she woke up to eat and Kelly and I saw that she had scrunched her legs up so that they were no longer inside of the legs of the jammies, and they were crossed up into the crotch part. The neck of the pajamas was around her shoulders.
I don't think there is anything sweeter than my baby sleeping peacefully in my arms. Except for maybe when she makes little humming sounds in her sleep. I love the look on her face when she is just waking up from a nap in her swing. I love the noise she makes when she yawns. I love that she has to stretch for ten minutes after I get her up. I love that she smiles at me when she wakes up. Sometimes, she cries if I take her straight to her changing table to change her diaper as soon as she wakes up, but then she looks at me and kind of smiles while she cries at the same time, and it's so cute and funny.
When I get ready for the day, I usually have her in the bathroom with me, strapped into her bouncer. She does good in there for the first little while, but then she starts to get mad that I'm not picking her up. So then I'll try to calm her down by giving her her binki, but I feel bad because as soon as I lean in close to her she gets all excited and kicks her arms and legs because she is excited that I'm finally coming to get her, but then I just put the binki in her mouth and she takes it and looks kind of disappointed.
Quincy really likes to suck on her index finger. She always has her hands in her mouth, and with that comes drool all over her face and hands. When she lays down to play, she almost always has her hands in her mouth, and she rubs her feet together. If her binki is in, then she clasps her hands together.
For Quincy's vaccines, I decided to do them a little differently. I know that there is a lot of controversy about them. Most people swear that they aren't harmful at all, others swear that they changed their kid forever. I hardly gave them any thought until I was pregnant. A friend of mine told me that one of her kids was fine, but then she quit the vaccines when she could tell they were affecting her second child. I believed her. I think that vaccines affect some children differently, but no one knows why. Another friend of mine told me about The Vaccine Book. I can't think of the name of the author right now, but he is a pediatric doctor who has been researching vaccines for years. He is pro-vaccine, but he is also pro- being informed. I devoured this book. He goes through each vaccine, and explains the disease and it's risks, along with the vaccine and the side effects. Then he gives his opinion on each one. Reading this book almost made me wish I hadn't, because at some points it feels like you have to choose between two evils for your child. That being said, I know that vaccines are important. I don't get how people can say that they don't work at all. I also don't get how people can say that there are no risks. There are risks either way, and I had to weigh those risks and make a decision that I felt was best for my family. I have a process to the way that I have made decisions since I was pregnant, and I do not regret any of the difficult choices that I have made. For example, I chose not to take blood pressure lowering meds when I was pregnant, and looking back I feel that I made the right decision for me. My baby may not have survived if I had stayed pregnant another week or two, and though being induced turned out to be awful, the cord was double wrapped around her neck. Everyone has to make decisions that they won't look back on. Like whether or not to get an epidural, whether or not to attempt a VBAC, whether or not vaccinate their baby. I don't look down on people, either way.
That was a lot of rambling about decisions and such, but the point of that is that I decided to forego certain vaccines. At a typical two month check up, baby gets vaccinated for polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, HIB, Pc, rotavirus, and possibly Hepatitis. If you've ever had a flu shot, you know that you feel pretty crappy the day after. Imagine how your two month old feels after getting injected with all of these different vaccines. I decided to only do dTaP, HIB, and Pc. Those are diseases that hospitalize and kill babies each year. Rotavirus is like a severe case of the stomach flu, it's common, but most babies only get diarrhea and vomiting and if they are hospitalized it's due to dehydration. This vaccine has a lot more side effects than the other vaccines that protect against more serious diseases, for something that really only seems to be more of an inconvenience than a threat to my child's life. Polio is not a threat to my tiny baby right now, so I may have her get that one when she's older. I also decided to spread out the vaccines, so Quinn got dtap at two months, and she got HIB and Pc at three months. I'm glad I did this because yesterday, Quinn got the second two shots. I knew going into it that the side effects of the Pc vaccine were 1 in 3 spike a low grade fever, 1 in 20 get a fever over 102.
Quinn screamed when they poked her, she looked up at me and held her breath, and then let out a scream. I felt so bad, I may have teared up. She stayed sad the rest of the day. She wanted to be held, and I could tell she did not feel well. She started to get really mellow yesterday evening, and she felt hot. I took her temperature, and I felt sick as I watched the numbers climb higher and higher so quickly. It reached 100, then 101, I kept praying it would not go any higher. It finally stopped at 101.4. I'm a first time mom, and I kind of freaked out. She was just whimpering and sad and she was having a hard time sleeping. I felt so bad for my baby. I gave her a little bit of Tylenol and rubbed some peppermint oil on her feet. I slept with her on the couch because she wouldn't stay asleep if I set her down. By early this morning her fever had come down. I realize that I shouldn't have freaked out because I knew what was causing the fever, but I was afraid it would get worse. I'm glad I didn't give her those shots last month, because I probably would have had a heart attack. They tell you to bring a baby in if they get a fever of 100.4 if they are younger than three months. I don't know if you're still supposed to if you know it's because of the vaccine though.
Anyways, she is doing better today. She's taken lots of long naps and she is happy when's he wakes up, so I'm thankful for that. This whole week, Quinn has been waking up a lot at night, almost every hour some nights and I was getting pretty frustrated with her. But last night when she had the fever and was so sad, I didn't care about me at all. I just wanted her to feel better. I don't regret my decision to give her the vaccine, I know it's important. It's better that she have a fever now then end of hospitalized later. While she was probably never in any real danger, I just want to savor these moments with my baby. You never know when they could be taken away from you. I never want to look back on her childhood and have regrets or wish that I would have taken time to remember the seemingly little things.
