Charlie was fully vaccinated through two months of age. I’d heard about all the controversy surrounding vaccines, but frankly, we’d been through so much the last thing I wanted was to land in the hospital with some random, totally preventable illness.

When Charlie was four months old, we were in the hospital having a shunt installed to drain cerebrospinal fluid off of his brain (good times). When he was six months old, he started having some very serious seizures, and vaccines were contra-indicated for the treatment of those seizures. So was going out in public. Again, fun times. Really, the first six months of Charlie’s life was one big party. If by party, you mean major medical event.

So Charlie was around one year of age before I got around to even thinking about vaccines again. At that point, after having spent some time in Seizure Town, I was pretty wary of vaccines and the associated risks.

So we waited.

And then suddenly, without me even noticing, Charlie was three with preschool looming before us. Louisiana is pretty lenient with regards to vaccinations and public school, so it was really up to me to decide how much, how many. etc.

I ended up finding this really fantastic book for any of you guys who aren’t sure about vaccinating or who maybe want to delay or even space out your child’s vaccinations. It’s called The Vaccine Book and it is authored by Dr. Robert Sears. What I like about it is that I didn’t feel pressured to do one thing or another—rather, he gives you a lot of options. He gives you a schedule for getting all your vaccines on a slow schedule, he suggests a reduced schedule for people who are nervous about it, he even provides you with the traditional schedule. The book tells you what additives are in vaccines and what the potential risks are.

We’re starting with the reduced schedule and Charlie got his first two vaccines in almost two years last week. He hated them. It wasn’t so much that they hurt—he seemed more mad that somebody DARED to do that to him. Twice. I guess I can see his point.

We started with some of the ones that prevent meningitis and will be moving on to DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) in about a month.

So if you have questions about vaccines, please check out this book! It saved me a ton of research time by putting everything in one place and it did so in a way that didn’t sound crazy and reactive.

Have a happy Fourth, y’all!