Daphne had her two month doctor visit yesterday, which meant her first shots.  We opted not to get the HepB vaccine when she was born (the birth center doesn’t offer it, and we didn’t take her in to have it done right away), and are going to continue delaying that one for a while, as it is not one of the vaccines that needs to be given by a particular age.  (And we don’t forsee her doing IV drugs or having random sex any time really soon.)  We also passed on the new rotavirus vaccine, as she is not at any particular risk for it – it’s neither winter, nor is she in daycare or around a lot of other kids.  But she got the rest of them – DTaP (diptheria, tetnus, pertussis), IPV (inactivated polio), Hib (haemophelia influenza b), and Prevnar (pneumococcal).

It was not pleasant to watch that process.  She woke up just before we had to leave for our appointment, and was quite hungry when we arrived.  That ought to have been fabulous, since nursing during the shots can help.  Only doctors visits often take rather a long time.  So, I nursed her on one side in the waiting room (and managed to mostly successfully walk to the exam  room with her still hooked up.  I waited to go to the other side until they were ready to do the shots, but we had to do the heart/lung check, weight check, questions about eating/pooping/peeing, and physical exam first.  Which meant the questions.  There was discussion over the reflux and how that was going (was getting a little worse since we started working on the sleeping, and I think because she was eating six times a day instead of eight, so I was giving her thirty minutes total to eat, rather than the twenty I had been doing, and I planned to go back to twenty minutes total), my questions on the vaccines (I’ve reacted to the Pneumovax, so I wanted to make sure the pneumococcal vaccine she was getting wasn’t the same, or I’d want to wait two or three weeks on that one), and so forth.

Eventually, when the doctor was done, she sent the nurse to draw the vaccines.  Only the nurse was in with another patient, so I had set up and started breastfeeding on the other side way too early.  Daphne had finished eating by the time the nurse came in with the shots!  I left her at the breast for some comfort sucking, which she likes and does intermittently, while they gave the shots.  I couldn’t see the needle go in, but I could see her slowly open her eyes very wide, turn quite red in the face, open her mouth (with my boob still in it), and then scream.  My boob did nothing more than muffle her cry.  She calmed fairly easily, but she was certainly not soothed through it.

She slept on the way home, and then for three hours after getting home.  It was time for a nap, but we hadn’t expected such a long one.  When she woke up to eat, we found she had a reaction to the DTaP/IPV/Hib vaccine (all done in one shot) with a slightly raised, large, red area under the injection sight.  While that type of thing is fairly common as a reaction, it was a bit larger than I would expect to see, so we did call in to the doctor’s office.  Unfortunately, we missed their call back, so I have to get back in touch today.  It’s doing much better, but I’d like to have the reaction noted in her chart for reference.

Other than that, the appointment went well.  She’s looking alert and active, showing good head control (which we knew), is up to 11lb6oz (still growing at nearly half a pound a week), doesn’t have anything funky going on with her skin, and so on.  That growth rate means we’ve already moved on from just about all of the newborn clothes and will need to buy the next size up diapers (we’re using Gdiapers) soon!  (Interesting side note: she’s staying right around the 50th percentile mark at the moment for weight.  If she stays there, she’ll hit the 28lb mark (which is the max recommended size on the next size up Gdiapers) at 27mo (though it varies between 21mo and 34mo for the 75th and 25th percentiles, respectively).  If ECing works well, or she potty trains on the earlier side, there’s a good chance we won’t need the large Gdiapers.  It makes the purchasing decisions interesting.)

In other news, the sleeping has been going interesting.  She is doing better about napping semiregularly, but isn’t very consistent about how much sleep she’s getting in a day.  She had two days that were closer to 14 or 15 hours, and then two that were closer to 12 or 13, and then back to 14 or 15 last night.  That did, however, include a six hour long stretch of sleep, only moderately interrupted by intestinal fussiness.  (That made for eight hours between feeds at night – my boobs were confused.)  She isn’t going for very long awake during the day, but she seems generally happier, doesn’t take forever to get to sleep (we soothe her to the first stage of sleep – it’s taking between 10 and 45 minutes with the 10 occurring when we catch her sleep signs early enough).  We’re definitely getting a routine down – she gets sleepy and gets swaddled (it really helps, but Jason doesn’t do it as often because he’s not confident about swaddling her), and then bounced or jiggled in some fashion.  If it’s a fussier time, she may get a finger to suck on (pacifier if she’ll take one), and sung to or shhh’ed.  I’m hoping that setting up a routine that she comes to recognize as “this means sleep” will help in a few months when she’s even more inclined to fight sleep and explore the world.  In the meantime, she’s more rested, and seems to be feeding better.  I still need to investigate one other suggestion my midwife had – that I may have Raynaud’s in the nipple.  Basically, that’s vasoconstriction – the blood vessels all clamp down, and when they open back up, it hurts a lot.  (Think of sitting on your foot or hand until it falls asleep (REALLY asleep) and what it feels like when it “wakes up”.)