So I made my decision. I should say, we made our decision, since Ryan is involved in parental decisions! The kids are immunized against H1N1. It was a tough road for me, weighing all the pros and cons. Everyone seemed to have an agenda for their side and I felt serious pressure from whomever I talked to that had an opinion - no matter what that opinion was. I felt that I wasn't getting all the facts, no matter how much research I did. But in the end, I decided that for the greater good, we would immunize. I really started thinking about all the pregnant women and young kids I know and we hang out with regularly, and how awful I would feel if I inadvertently spread H1N1 to someone who ended up really sick or dying. Even if all the risks were known and parents chose not to immunize, I would still feel terrible if those kids got it from our family. I completely respect those that do not immunize, and really, I would have preferred not to. In our circumstances, I really think my family's chances of dying from this were so teeny-tiny, I would have been willing to take the risk, if it was only us involved. But we are social, so... And this is coming from someone who gives the "regular" 2, 4, 6, 12 and 18 month (and 4 year, although we're not there yet) shots without a second thought. (That doesn't mean I don't know the facts, risks, etc. - it just means I believe firmly in those vaccines.) So I kinds felt like I was contradicting myself. I guess while H1N1 is killing a small number of people (which is terrible and tragic), everyone else just gets a horrible flu, with no side effects. This opposed to polio, for example, were you didn't just risk death, but other terrible possibilities. Chances of coming away from that disease completely unscathed were (are?) far lower than with this new flu. Who knows, though. Maybe the future will reveal things unknown. Maybe our children will shudder that we even considered NOT giving them the vaccine. Or maybe they will shudder that we DID consider giving it to them. In any case, our decision is made and it is done and over with. God bless this decision that was prayed about time and time again.

Now as far as the actual experience...everything was set up so efficiently and smoothly. There were no lines when we went, and we sailed through. The only downfall was that all the vaccines were given in one big room, so the kids experienced crying, nay - screaming - children as soon as we walked into the actual "needle" room. Well, there was really only one hysterical child, but that was all it took. Jared was okay until I tried to roll up his sleeve. Then he started to panic and told me he didn't want the sharpy, it would hurt. So we had a little talk about the fact that, yes, it was going to hurt for a bit, but it was going to protect him from getting sick, etc. etc. Yeah, didn't help. So it was a matter of me using all my strength to hold his arms down. It didn't help that he watched. He either happened to move as she put the needle in, or he flinched because of it, but either way, Ryan said the needle bent, and he was actually worried that it might break off! I couldn't see a thing, due to the rather large, flailing head in my way. That's okay - I don't want to watch anyway! But I think I could have clamped his arm down a bit more if I'd known the actual moment the nurse "stabbed" him. In any case, he survived and his crying and hysteria was more due to psychological stress than anything else. Once I told him we'd get him some ice cream for having to endure such trauma if he stopped crying, he did just that. Ayda picked up on Jared's stress, but she was far less panicked and Ryan was able to easily hold her arm still. She recovered more quickly, too. So we went to the waiting room (you have to wait for 15 minutes in case of a severe reaction - standard in any immunization), and to get their arms pumping (it's a sore-arm needle) and their minds off of it all, I started chasing them and telling them to run around. Well, not a minute into it, Jared trips on a cord or something and bites it, falling onto his Lighting McQueen matchbox car, causing a blood blister in him hand. That was WAY worse than the "sharpy"! Aghhh, if only he hadn't fallen, we would have had smooth sailing! I asked him which hurt more a couple of times and it was his hand every time. One time I asked him how his arm was doing, and he looked at me kinda confused and said, "Fine", as if nothing had happened to his arm. We'll see how the morning is. A lot of people have said that about 6 hours after the shot is when their arm started hurting, and it lasted a couple of days. But kids are amazing and so who knows.

Wow. That was way longer than I anticipated. So as a thank-you for sticking with me, here are some pictures.

After trying a couple of times, I'll have to make you wait for the photos. There seems to be a problem with Blogger...