You are not Vaccinated!!

We had been lucky that our 9 month old had not been sick.  Right after her 9 month check up, after I jinxed her by saying this, she woke up with a runny nose.  As the day progressed, she had a fever of 101.  In the evening, we took her to the on call doctor (not our doctor of course), who upon walking in the room, looked at our daugther's chart and said "You are not vaccinated at all? That is not good!".  Right away, I knew this visit was going to be unpleasant.  He did his check up and then told us that we needed to get blood work done since she had a fever.  All the labs were closed so we would have to go to the Children's hospital and go to the ER.  He proceeded to tell us stories of how many babies he has seen die of Hib and how serious it is and kept offering scare tactics as his method for getting us to vaccinate.  Meanwhile, I have a baby who is sick and it is past her bedtime and he will not let us leave so we can go to the ER which was going to be a long night anyway.  We were so frustrated and we just wanted to get our baby the care she needed.

When then get to the ER and the doctor there was so rude to us.  She had decided that we were irresponsible parents because we did not vaccinate and treated us that way during the whole ER visit.  Based on one thing, she sized us up into "bad parents".  It was so insulting and unnecessary.  We never said we were anti vaccinations, we just wanted to wait until she was year but the doctor did not even care or ask our reasoning.  The fact that she treated us like "bad parents' was frustrating.  How many parents get their children vaccinated out of obligation but do not provide  even half of the love and care that we provide our child?   How parents neglect their children when they are sick?  These things happen all the time but that does not seem to matter.  We realize we take a risk when not vaccinating but we feel the risks are greater when we vaccinate our baby at such a young age.  This is why we pay attention to how she is feeling and the second she has any symptoms, we call the doctor and have her checked out. 

This was a great example of the challenges of being a natural mommy in a mainstream world.  I am fine with doctors providing advice on vaccinations, I am very open to it.  I am not ok with anyone including doctors treating any parent like they are irresponsible because of choices they have made, especially when they do not take the time to even ask why.  In the end, my daughter was fine.  That is what counts.  However, next time, no doctor should  jump to conclusions or make assumptions without asking first.