Will the risks of the H1N1 Flu Vaccine outweigh the benefits?   In the 1976 Swine Flu outbreak the CDC quickly created a flu vaccine to control the Swine Flu outbreak and rushing the process had dramatic neurological effects like the Gullain Barre Syndrome on children.   Will this new vaccine protect the population since today’s vaccine was created based upon the current strain, not the possible mutated version the medical community believes will spread this winter?

I am actually grateful my children were part of the first wave of H1N1 cases that swept across the country back in June. I will not be getting the H1N1 vaccine for my family because the vaccine is being created to fight the strain that we have already contracted.

Do the research before getting the H1N1 vaccine for your children! Keep in mind that the reason you put your signature next to each vaccine your child receives is you are saying you understand the risks and side effects each vaccine poses to your children.  Don’t let your pediatrician or Doctor pressure you into agreeing to a vaccine you are not sure of! The ultimate responsibility lies on your shoulders if something horrible happens to your children.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4SmFxyust0&feature=player_embedded

http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/swineflu.asp

I have had a few people ask me why I did not change my last name when I got married. I ask them back why did you agree to change your name?

Before I got married I had a career, I was an established Human Resources Manager and I had recruiters calling me. I was known as Jessy Clifton, not Jessica Clifton, and certainly not by my boyfriends last name. I liked my name, I was never teased as a child because of my name, I have never ran into another person with the same name and I was not in a hurry to get rid of it because I disliked my last name. I don’t agree that women have to change their legal identity while men don’t have to change their identity when they get married.

I did not want to have to change every bit of identifying information when I got married, credit cards, ID, Social Security, Bank Accounts, E-mail addresses, Business Cards, ugh the list is endless at how many things are personalized with your full name.

I do not agree with the fact that historically slaves took on their owners last names and became a piece of their owners property. I see changing last names as an archaic tradition where women are now owned by their husband’s family. Should you take your husbands family name because you now are owned by them? Lets look at historical marriage ceremonies where the woman’s family gives 4 cows and 1 sheep to the husbands family to take care of her because women were not worth much more than animals. I chose my husband and my family did not give my husbands family any cows to get rid of me. I believe we need to question this tradition! It is archaic and unnecessary. I am still legally married but with my own name. When the priest announced us he said I would introduce the new husband and wife. I did not want to be introduced as Mr. and Mrs. John Johnson! Are you kidding me, not only does a woman loose her last name now she looses her first name and is just Mrs. John Johnson? Ick! How demeaning!

Basically there were more reasons why I refused to have my name changed than why I would ever consider changing it to keep my husbands family happy. Before we were married my husband and I talked about the complications that might happen with separate last names, we have no problem having both of our names on bank accounts, house, insurance, cars. I agreed to allow our children to have his last name.

Now here is where we have had problems. One time my husband was in the emergency room and I had to give them my name and ID to be allowed back to see him. The nurse gave me a hard time because I had a separate last name, she actually told me that I needed to have my marriage license to prove I was married. I told her I would have her job if she did not allow me to see my husband. Jon had tickets held at a will call and he was parking the car and told me to go in and get the tickets. The woman at will-call would not give me the tickets because I did not have the same last name. I said would you give the tickets to his sister? Not that it helped but hopefully I made her think about her process and I will make sure that he gets tickets in his name not me. Now that we have children, I have had a few moms question why my children have separate last names and if I am married to their father. I also tend to write on paperwork that I am their mother next to my name and next to my husbands name I write that we are married with different last names. I don’t ever want my children to be discriminated against because it appears their parents are not married by last names. I will make sure that does not happen.

Why do I bring this up? I am surprised at how few women even consider keeping their last name and happily give up their entire identity in order to get married. I think hyphenated names are very 1992, but still give those women some credit for being forward thinking. I want women to think twice about why they are changing their last names just to get married when you will legally are still married with your own name.

I recently had an experience that made me question how parents are raising their sons. We were at a party when a boy repeatedly bullied her, no matter how many times I tried to interfere. My daughter is not used to people being mean to her, she is used to playing well and sharing with others because that is what I expect of her. I want my daughter to play with nice kids, I want her to know that all boys are not mean, and I don’t want my son to learn this type of negative behavior.

Is it just that these boys are “All Boy”? I don’t think so at all. I think that parents allow for more slack in their parenting with boys and don’t correct their children’s behaviors with the excuse that they are just boys being boys. I guarantee right now that I will expect the same level of appropriate and kind behavior out of my son as I do out of my daughter. I will not let him be mean.

I think many parents are confusing mean bullying style children with being tough. They don’t want their boys to be looked at as sissy’s so they instead turn their heads to ignore mean behavior so their son learns how to be tough. No that is not a tough kid, that is a mean kid. Tough kids, have not been coddled and their parents have taught them when they are not really injured how to toughen up and not to melt down over a scratch. A tough kid is the kid that can fall down have two skinned knees, skinned elbows and scratched forehead, spit on their injuries to get them clean and go continue to play.

The good thing that came out of my daughter being bullied was that I had a teaching conversation with her to help her to deal with this type of behavior. By the time we were ready to leave she was telling him when he was being mean, “Please don’t be mean to me, that hurts my feelings!” I got to explain to her that if this happens at a school it is never OK for people to hit you and that you should tell an adult so they can correct their behavior. My daughter is going to preschool in a month and hopefully this experience will help her deal with mean children.

You know what else drives me nuts when parents say something but don’t follow through with what they are telling their child. Here is an example, “No, no, Frankie, don’t tease. Don’t steal toys. You need to share.” These parents are just saying these things and doing absolutely nothing to correct the behavior. These parents need to walk up to their kids, look them in the eyes, make sure they are listening give the message and give them a consequence for their actions. If my kids take a toy from another kid, I tell them, “Don’t steal toys, it is not nice.” I make them give it back. If my kids tease they will get a time out, no question. I am still trying to figure out if these parents without follow through are spineless parents or lazy parents? I would rather sit down, socialize with my friends and yell from a distance to pretend like I am correcting their behavior, but really it does no good to just pretend. I will stop my conversation, and risk not being able to relax, in order to teach my children the correct and kind way to behave.

Sometimes people want their children to be popular and allow them to be mean to others, allow them to exclude others, allow them to snub others and generally not be kind. If this is what popular kids do I would rather my children be geeks and have a few, quality friends that care about each other.

I want my children to be kind, and I do not sit aside and just hope that they will figure out how to be kind on their own, I will constantly correct their behavior and teach them how to be good, kind, thoughtful people. I also raise my kids to be physically tough and not sissy’s but that does not mean they can be mean. I will never stand aside and allow my child to bully another child. I want my children to play with nice kind children, I want them to understand that a quality friendship is made with people who care about you and are kind. If children are bullies and are mean are becoming what is considered appropriate behavior, I will do whatever I can to protect my children even if that means private or home schooling.

A woman gave birth in a New Jersey Hospital in April of 2006, she refused a doctor suggested c-section and while in labor was given multiple psychiatric evaluations. She gave birth to a healthy baby by vaginal delivery with no complications.  Even though she gave birth to a healthy baby she was told her baby would not be able to come home with her and was turned over to Social Services, she was non compliant with social services and the court system and custody of her child was given to the foster family. She was ruled as abusive and neglectful for refusing the c-section even before her child was born.  The reason this is in the news is because the custody ruling was upheld last week in court.

This ruling blows my mind!  There are so many things that run through my head!

This ruling gives the unborn baby more rights than the mom, this must be a huge blow for abortion advocates around the country.  They ruled that she was abusing and neglecting her child by refusing to allow medical intervention and she lost even though she delivered without incident and the baby was healthy with no ill effects from delivering.

A woman who works with my sister in law here in Minnesota, refused a c-section when her baby was in distress because she did not want a scar.  She made the wrong decision, and her baby died during her vaginal delivery.  This happened about 4 months ago and she did not have any charges pressed against her for her decision to risk the health of her baby.  This was considered her choice.  In my opinion it was a horribly selfish choice and she will have to live the rest of her life knowing that her selfish choice to avoid a scar killed her full term baby.

This ruling gives the doctor who makes the call to make the call for the c-section more rights than the woman who refuses the surgery. Now doctors can say that you may be held legally responsible and loose your child if you neglect to listen to my decision to have a c-section as I am recommending right now.

When you have a c-section the doctor, anesthesiologist and nurses have to explain the risks and you have to sign multiple forms approving the doctors decision to have a c section.  It is your choice and you have to approve this choice.

This ruling is going to take away so many women’s rights and give so many more rights to doctors and social workers that it scares me.

Online References:

Yahoo.com Article, Examiner.com Article

I was reflecting on when my daughter was a newborn and how I did not feel specifically attached to her but did not want to admit it to anyone.    I thought it was due to my lack of sleep or the fact that she cried so much.  I nursed my baby and I never had that feeling of utter happiness that you are supposed to have once you have nursing mastered and look down at your happy baby.   I remember I wanted to try formula right away,  because I felt like I needed to be myself again and I thought that it might make her cry less.  It was summer and I felt stuck in the house, it was nice outside and I couldn’t even figure out how to get to the grocery store,  let alone how to pack up a baby and go anywhere while nursing.
I remember very clearly that  I would sit and rock her while nursing her and I would think to myself that she was my sisters baby.  I would think things to myself like when your mom comes over tomorrow, referring to my sister, or I would say, I need to call your mom, before I picked up the phone to call my sister.   I don’t know if this was because she had a baby 6 months before me, so I was used to seeing her as the mom, or if I really did not think that this baby that I was so excited to have, felt like mine.

It could also have been the fact that I had a c-section and I was stuck at home for 6 weeks without driving myself anywhere, during the most beautiful, summertime weather.  I could not swim, I could not go for walks, I could not exercise.  I could not figure out who I was.  I did not have that new mom glow that I thought I would have.  I wanted to have a natural birth, I wanted to be able to push my baby around in my new stroller and feel good, I wanted to be able to enjoy my summer and be able to bring my baby with me everywhere like I envisioned.   When I was with her I could not figure out how to take a shower or type an e-mail without having her in the other arm.  It was a total shock to my system and did not help with my bonding.

I don’t think I was as good of a new mom as I could have been if I would have felt more comfortable around her.  She cried alot and I did not feel like I could comfort her effectively. The fog that I felt, lasted about 8 weeks.  Eight weeks was when I rushed back to work to help myself feel more like me.  I remember being asked by my gynecologist at the 6 week appointment if I have been sad and I answered that I did not feel sad.  She did not ask if I felt like I was bonding with my baby or if I felt happy being a mom which I think would have been more applicable questions in my situation.  I wonder would I have answered honestly?  I don’t know, I really liked my OB but I did not want anyone to think I was a bad mom or did not love my baby because what kind of person does not love their beautiful baby girl?

If  there are new moms who feel this type of fog or lack of attachment, or feel like they need to regain their life back right away,  there might have attachment issues.  It might be a case of the baby blues or postpartum depression.   Please speak honestly with your OB/GYN to see if they think this is something that you might need help getting through.

Today I adore my daughter and I can say that I know I did not know what I was really signing up for when I wanted to get pregnant.  I was happy to have my son and never felt that fog that I had with my daughter was a newborn, I also felt the sense of love that I think you should feel right away for my son and I knew he was mine.   It took me about 12 weeks before I felt that sense of love with my daughter.  I am grateful that I was able to get over it but it sure might have made both of our lives easier if I would have figured it out earlier.