Two month shots = no fun

Ben’s pediatrician was either booked or on vacation for the last two weeks since Ben actually hit the two month milestone so we just got in today for his two month well baby visit. The doctor said he looked good and is growing nicely. The officials stats are:

• 11 pounds, 6 ounces (25 percentile)
• 23.75 inches long (50-75 percentile)
• 15.75 inches head circumference (25-50 percentile)

After the easy part was done my poor baby got three shots and one oral vaccine. He screamed for a few seconds and then seemed to be just fine. We went home, I nursed him and he took a nice nap. When he woke up (early afternoon) he was crabby as all get out and would just scream for no apparent reason (he would be sitting completely still so nothing was even touching the spots on his legs where he got the shots).

I tried twice to nurse him and the screaming only got worse. Finally, I sent Mike to the store for some infant Tylenol, which seemed to help. He took some and then nodded off for another nap. By dinnertime I thought things were looking up. He sat quietly in his seat while we ate, but when I tried to feed him after our dinner the screaming fits started again. Earlier in the day I had posted about his crying jags on Facebook and a friend/nurse responded with some pretty serious complications that could arise from the oral rotavirus vaccine. I freaked, called the Nurse on Call and then, on her recommendation, took Ben to the emergency room. He hadn’t nursed for about 8 hours and I was getting really nervous.

Turns out, it was nothing. By the time we got to the ER he was talking to the nurses and acting just fine (though he still hadn’t ate anything). They checked him over and then I tried to nurse again. It looked like he was going to do just fine, but after just a couple of seconds he started screaming again. The nurse left and went to let the doctor know he could come visit, I tried the other side and, of course, he latched on and ate like a champ. The doctor came in while he was eating and kindly let me finish before trying to look at Ben. I still don’t know why exactly he had such a bad reaction all day (my guess is a poorly timed and very expensive gas bubble that just wouldn’t go away coupled with some discomfort from the vaccines), but at least I’ll know what might be coming when he gets the same round of vaccinations at 4 and 6 months.