Doctors Make Me Nervous

...but that doesn't mean I don't take my kid to one.

Today was our first appointment with our new pediatrician. My anticipation level hovered near anxiety for reasons both numerous and boring. If there was a list of 100 things about me on this blog, it would contain something about my tendancy to worry over the uncontrollable details. That said, I think my son could not care less about the whole business. Smart little peanut.

We're on a very altered vaccination schedule, and though our previous pediatrician in North Carolina was good at adjusting to that, she was never really supportive. I was confident in my choices and educated about my reasons which helped to ease her concerns. However, this was not the kind of ongoing relationship that I thought would be best for my son and my own mental health. In all other ways our previous doc set the bar unreachably high.

Back to those vacs. I picked a new doc here in Oregon because he was familiar with the source of my altered schedule and he is supportive of such changes. He's also pretty clear about medicating with antibiotics only when necessary, another kudo for us. We talked about one of the shots we'd chosen to go without and he asked me to reconsider my objections based on new data. Good argument. He's aware of the thimerisol issue, we talked about Chicken Pox and Measles/Mumps/Rubella timing, and he never said a peep about my passing on Hep B. After today, I feel very confident about his knowledge and I'm pretty sure we'll be able to work together well in my son's best interests.

(The pediatrician who checked out my newborn son two years ago wasa total bastard very vocal about our choosing not to give our son his first shot, for a sexually transmitted disease no less, at the age of 12 hours. Not a keeper.)