I had one thing and one thing only that I needed to accomplish today. At 8am I needed to go to the midwife’s office for my regular checkup and get my swine flu vaccine on the way out. It was the failiest fail ever.

Last visit to the midwife’s office was wonderful and exciting. We found out we were having a girl and got to watch Penny squirming on the ultrasound machine for a solid half hour. Matt was with me, and held my hand as I laid down and received my regular seasonal flu vaccine. At that visit I had planned on getting both vaccines, but after barely making it through the seasonal flu shot, I opted to get my H1N1 on my next visit which was scheduled well in advance so Matt could come with me.

Well, he wound up not being able to come today. February being a short month and Tennessee being snow-day happy, he had to squeeze in a couple extra hours today with a client, so I went alone. I’ve known for about a week and a half that I would be going alone and psyched myself up for it. As in, not sleeping a wink last night and walking into the office this morning shaking.

When I arrived Brandy took my blood pressure, and her eyes opened so wide I thought maybe SHE was going to pass out and suddenly I’d have to really pull myself together and give her mouth to mouth or something. She asked me to take the standard pee test to find out if I had preeclampsia. I told her I thought maybe my blood pressure was high because I was so nervous, but she wanted to opt on the safe side.

So I waited in the room for what felt like decades before the midwife and her midwife-in-training came in to see me. Before I could even say hello I blurted out, “Do I have preeclampsia?” Midwife Melissa smiled and assured me that I was fine, no preeclampsia, and that they’d try taking my blood pressure later in the appointment.

And that’s when I burst into tears and told her that I was so nervous about coming in and getting a shot by myself, that my husband couldn’t make it (and he’s the one who really wants me to get the swine flu vaccine anyways!), and that my car was in the shop so I’m driving this brand new loaner car from the dealer, and what if I passed out and crashed the loaner car on the way home?!

“You really don’t need to get the shot today. Why don’t you wait until your husband can come with you?”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’d like you to get the vaccine, but you’ll be fine if you put it off another four weeks. We have to do a blood draw at your next visit anyways, so we can get it all done at once. And you get another ultrasound at that visit, which will be fun! You’ll get to see your little girl again!”

This is where I kissed her on the mouth. We finished up all the routine stuff, and she re-took my blood pressure which wound up being perfectly fine, in fact a little on the low side of normal.

I really wanted to be brave enough to get that shot all by myself today. I’ve had my blood drawn before by myself, but the thing that freaks me out about the flu vaccine is that you can feel it in your arm long after you’ve had it done, unlike a blood draw. And for some reason, my physiological response to feeling that sting hours later is to get queasy all over again. But I wanted to overcome it. I wanted to make Matt proud of me, especially because he knows that despite what everyone says, I still don’t believe it’s necessary to have the silly vaccine, but I am willing to do it because it matters so much to him. I wanted to kick this fear in the crotch once and for all.

I have gone to so many midwife visits over the past few months, have been poked and prodded with needle after needle and haven’t passed out once. I have gotten so much better. But then days like today come along, and I feel like I’m back to square one with no improvements made.

I mean, what would you do if you were told you needed to go sky diving once a month to usher in world peace. You’d be scared spitless at the door of that plane, and the only thing stopping you from vomiting would be the sexy G.I. Joe character whose back you’d be strapped to for the free-fall. So you get a little less scared each month cause G.I. Joe makes you feel a wee mite safer. But then one day you have to jump alone. And you start crying and say to yourself, “WHY DO I NEED TO JUMP OUT OF A PLANE TO STOP ETHNIC CLEANSING?!” So the plane takes you safely back to the airport, and you drive home hating yourself because c’mon, what’s so scary about jumping out of a plane?! ALONE?! People do that all the time, right? A BABY COULD DO IT!

That’s basically what it feels like. And now, because of my big needle fail the whole world is going to die of swine flu.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Babies!, Little Friend, Marriage, Stress, The Idiotic Things I Do. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.