Guest Post from Erika: Shots

Before we had Peter, I would joke to my mommy friends how taking care of Pawlene was *just like* taking care of a baby! I was totally prepared for human motherhood! They would look at me in all seriousness and tell me that I was out of my mind. Today the difference between being Pawlene's mommy and Peter's mommy really hit home. Peter got his first shot today.

When I bring Pawlene in to the vet, she is suspicious from the moment I stuff her into the cat carrier. She KNOWS something bad is going to happen. Her eyes get all big, she meows a plaintive, unhappy, CONSTANT meow, and although she tolerates the vet's prodding enough for them to comment on her sweet, un-tortoise shell-like nature, when that shot comes, she wriggles away and yowls her unhappiness. It is as she suspected - cat carrier = pain. And then she's over it. I bring her home, release her, and she licks her wounds and looks for the food bowl. The experience is forgotten, and I am forgiven. Until the next time I come at her with the cat carrier.

With Peter today it was very different. He doesn't mind the baby carrier (car seat), and is content to just look around as we drive to wherever, and most of the time he falls asleep. He was his typical, happy, mellow self in the doctor's office today, cooing and wiggling, and even beaming one of his new smiles at the doctor. She immediately fell in love. "Is he always like this? Does he cry?" I glossed over the daily 5:00 grumpy hour and bragged about how sweet and mellow my baby is. Then the doctor left and the mean nurse came in to administer Peter's vaccination shots.

Peter continued to coo happily, even as she asked me to hold his little hands down. He looked up at me with a trusting, wide-eyed stare. "Aboo?" And then the first shot sunk in. His beautiful little face crumpled into a surprised and unhappy scream. Then the tears started and the shrieks increased in volume and frequency. My heart broke as I held his little hands. Three shots and it was over, but he screamed and cried for 20 minutes, then slumped exhausted into his car seat with swollen red eyes and a glazed, traumatized look on his face.

Such betrayal - I felt like the worst mother in the whole world. He trusted that I would not let anything bad happen to him, and as I was holding him and looking into his eyes, he experienced the worst pain of his short little life. If I weren't taking him on a germ-infested international flight in August, I would have run out of the doctor's office after that first, awful shriek. "It's for you own good!", I whispered lamely as I kissed his hot little head through my own tears, sounding suspiciously like a Mother.

Later at home, in between soothing a still upset little baby, I talked to my doula on the phone and confessed my horrible betrayal. "This is just the beginning," she reminded me.