why i have to ask if your child has been vaccinated.
Ashley here. Jackson’s mom – yes, that Jackson. The one with the trach, the one with the CHD, and the one your little one just invited over to play. Or maybe we set up the time to meet. Either way, I’m super excited to be getting together. Play dates are the best, right? Or is it the wine? Whatever – I’m pumped.
You see, Jackson spent a lot of time in a hospital. A lot of time being poked and prodded. A lot of time being a patient instead of a baby. So getting to do these kinds of things with him is amazing. Allowing him to be a typical baby with typical baby friends is great. And, it’s great for me, too. My husband and I spent a lot of time in that hospital, and we were so looking forward to the day when we could take him home and let him meet the world head on.
But, I have a question to ask you, and it may be a little personal.
Ah, the ‘v’ word – a word that is almost as emotionally charged as the last election. A word that a lot of people tend to not talk about because they believe ‘it’s personal’ or ‘it’s a choice’. That it’s something that isn’t anyone else’s business – a family decision that affects their family and their children alone. The problem is, though, for us – it’s not.
Jackson was born full term, but that doesn’t mean he was quite ready for the world just yet. Born at 38 weeks, Jackson weighed in at about 5 pounds, not even hitting the first percentile on the growth curve. That’s okay, though, a lot of babies are born his size. Problem was, that wasn’t his only issue – he had a jaw that was too small and a heart that wasn’t whole and a belly that didn’t quite make it all the way to complete when it was forming. He was born with a lot of challenges – challenges we met with as much strength and grace as we could muster, but challenges that set him back none the less.
Along with these challenges came compromises; concessions that had to be made to allow him to grow and develop. No one wants their child to have a tracheostomy or a bowel resection or open heart surgery, let alone all three before four months of age, but that’s what we did. All the while, we battled infections and illnesses, treating them the best we could, throwing high doses of very powerful antibiotics his way and stressing his system in ways that a baby shouldn’t have to be stressed.
Problem is, we had to make another big compromise, too.
We had always planned to get Jackson vaccinated. My husband and I have done the research and understand the studies. We know the risks and we know the benefits and we know that preventing diseases that can be prevented isn’t even a question for us, especially after seeing the aftermath of the ones we can’t prevent. The issue, though, is that vaccines aren’t always top on the list in a hospital setting. When it comes down to the question of ‘life saving surgery’ or ‘hepatitis B shot’, it can be easy to understand how one is chosen over the other. Plus, his immune system, already compromised from being in the hospital and having his little body opened up so many times, just isn’t quite ready to take on the vaccines just yet.
Sure, we’ll get there. We’ve talked to his doctors and have a plan to catch him up, but it won’t happen over night. So, in the mean time, he’ll be susceptible to those preventable diseases we talked about before.
One of the arguments I hear a lot when it comes to a choice not to vaccinate your children is that they are your children – you know their medical history and what they need. They don’t have any problems that would make it hard for their bodies to fight off disease, so why do they need the help? Why not let nature take its course and treat the disease as it comes? And, besides, you don’t know anyone that is chronically ill, anyways.
The problem with that is Jackson. Well, not just Jackson, but the 1 in 100 kids like him diagnosed with congenital heart disease at birth. Or the thousands of kids going through cancer treatment. Or the kids born with an immune system that wasn’t quite right or the countless other children who are too young or too sick or can’t be vaccinated for one reason or another. They look a lot like your kids – you probably wouldn’t even know some of them have had lifesaving surgery or spent months behind hospital walls – but they’re just a little but different. And they need your help.
You see, when these little ones get sick, it doesn’t just run its course at home with a few days of bed rest and chicken noodle soup. It’s hospital trips, oxygen machines, and rounds of antibiotics that we hope work but that might just not because their bodies have been exposed to them so many times. It’s continuous monitoring and sedation and being set back even further when it comes to development. And, for some of these little ones, it’s the hospital visit they don’t come home from.
Maybe it’s selfish of me. Maybe it’s too much for me to ask that you vaccinate your child because we can’t vaccinate ours just yet. Maybe it feels pushy or preachy or overbearing. Maybe it feels like I’m forcing my beliefs on you and not letting you parent how you see fit.
Or, maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s not too much to ask. Maybe it’s just one mom asking another to help her little one be as typical as he can, letting him go to a day care, school, or the playground without worrying. Maybe it’s one mom trying to give her little one a shot at a typical childhood, free from the hospital he lived in for much of his young life.
So, I hope you’re not offended when I ask. And I hope it makes you think a little about your decision, one way or the other. And I hope you like white wine, because I brought two bottles.
I hope you realize it’s important to know this because the recently vaccinated can shed the virus. The CDC even warns of vaccine shedding. Lots of love to you and your family, I hope you research a little deeper into vaccine shedding and protect that precious life you’ve created.
And unless you are going to ask every parent at every park and at every grocery store and every doctor’s office….you should just stay home. Or even yourself, do you have all the vaccines on the 2017 schedule, all your boosters, CDC says vaccines only 5-10 years.
Mrs. Fun – I’d encourage you to read up more on the concept of ‘vaccine shedding’. Considering most (if not all, depending on the version you are getting) vaccines are not live, they by definition cannot ‘shed’.
Also, we do ask that adults who have close contact with our son are vaccinated appropriately. Asking us to simply ‘stay home’ since we have a medical disability is not only ridiculous, – how do we get to the 5+ doctors appointments he has a week? – it’s rude and discriminatory. Our child has the same right to enjoy life as any other.
Thank you, but we have done all of the research we need to make our educated decision, involving the use of peer approved studies and published research instead of documentaries.
Hey mama. Sorry about your babe. I hope he makes a full recovery and can live a wonderful life. As parents we do what is best for our children. And yes it is thier choice to vaccinate or not. While I am neither pro or anti vaxx I am about informed decision making especially when I comes to children. And if a parent does research and decides to vaccinate or not then great I am so happy they made an informed decision. I do not believe in doing something just because a doctor says we should or should not.
I understand you are worried about your babe contracting an illness and with the low immune system it would be devastating. I hope you realise that vaccinated children and adults can still carry the illness and pass it on without showing any symptoms. I personally would be more worried about vaccinated people around my babe because of that. With an unvaccinated person you can tell if they have it. I would ask if anyone has been sick or if they have been around someone who is sick in the past 10 days. Because I would be worried about any sickness.
I have also seen NICU’s with signs saying to staybaway if you’ve been recently vaccinated and I have also see care forms for cancer patients that tell them to stay away from recently vaccinated persons.