Dr. Lane Appointment
I decided that since there are multiple doctors at Fairhaven that I needed to meet another of the doctors so this time we met with Dr. Lane for the check-up.
After the appointment with her, we had an appointment for a fetal developmental ultrasound, and the results were good. Baby Allen seems to be doing well, he is approximately 5lbs, and although his head is further along in development than the rest of him, that isn't a bad thing. When the computer averaged out the measurements of his head, torso and legs, he is at approximately 35-weeks development, and according to the calendar we're at 34.5-weeks today, so that's about right.
Dr. Lane is a nice lady, a good doctor, but she is entirely too hung up on the current laws and regulations for vaccinations, and general rules for picking out a pediatrician before the baby is born. The FDA has changed some of the rules, and even though I have had my whooping cough and tetanus vaccines (from the military) and both are good for up to 5-years (just had it last year when we came home), the FDA wants me to have the double whammy shot so that the baby will have a "leg up" on those vaccinations. I told her I would not be getting them today, and she got upset with me but knew just as well as me that she couldn't force me to get any shots. However, due to this initial refusal, I have to be careful so as to not have medicaid decide they will not be paying for the birth or something of that sort. Especially since she and I got into it about how I will not be allowing the baby to receive the vaccinations they try to give babies immediately after birth. I will be allowing him to be vaccinated after he is 2-weeks old, which is also the time frame which I am keeping in mind before I allow him to be out in public, at church, etc. I think that the public eye can wait 2 more weeks after his birth before they get to nit-pick and tell me all the things I am doing wrong as a mother. I plan to enjoy my son to the fullest... and that includes keeping him to ourselves for the first two weeks of his post-birth life.
My mother-in-law and husband went along with me to the doctor so they could see the ultrasound, because 1) Devon likes to see the U/S's, and 2) Connie hadn't seen one yet. She had asked, I had refused because she was being pushy about it, and because she backed off, I let her go.
In general, I do not like it when I am told I "must" do something. Especially if I do not believe it is in the best interest of those involved, being myself, my husband or my child... which is probably why Dr. Lane's pushiness has ruffled my feathers so much.
All of that aside though, later that evening I had some issues with Lisa G. in that she had asked me to bring over some eggs from my chickens (I've been selling the extra eggs from both my own chickens and from Rick Ultz's. Lisa wanted 3-dozen) and then decided she was going to be difficult about it since I wasn't going to deliver them to her door. Made Devon & I wait until 1030 before she picked them up, which in turn made it really late before we got home.
When we do get home, I sent Devon down to the chicken coop to make sure they were put away (they were) but something had dug a hole into the coop to get to my hens (I have 8), and although none of them seem any worse for wear... it makes me nervous having something digging into my chicken house. I want to get more hens, but if I get more, I want to be sure that something isn't going to get into their coop to eat them or their eggs... Devon & my dad did the best they could with what they had available when they built my chicken coop, but because the floor is dirt... coons, opossums, foxes and the like could potentially dig into the pen and go after my birds. They have a fork lift pallet that they roost on to sleep, and raised boxes to lay their eggs in, as well as another fork lift pallet leaning against the wall to sit on when they feel like it, or when the guinea's are picking on them (Devon has 4 guinea's; I don't think much of them but he likes them).
Mother got these birds thinking they would be good to have around since they eat lots of bugs and what not, but she had no idea that chickens are almost as much of a garbage disposal animal as a pig is. What has resulted, is that we have some extremely happy birds, that lay really nice eggs because we dump the food scraps from that days meals on the floor of their pen, along with grain, and by the next morning all the scraps are gone. Well, except for the rinds from melons. Those take longer for them to eat up. :-) I would dearly love to get a cow, I miss having a milk cow, but it isn't feasible right now because we have no where to keep her. Likewise with hogs. I would like to get at least one, possibly two hogs. The original idea was that my in-laws could have a share of the hog, or buy one of their own and keep it here, buying the feed and so forth with it just residing in our barn, but with Megan's rabbits, we don't have room for a hog or cow right now. Megan loves her rabbits, and some of them are actually quite valuable, so I've suggested she needs to legitimately breed some to sell to the 4H kids, or for meat, but she doesn't think she can handle selling them for meat anymore. That's how we got into having rabbits in the first place, Dad started raising them for meat to sell to the restaurants in New York City and Chicago. The money dried up due to not having transport from here to there, so we got out of the meat business but Megan wanted to continue raising bunnies, so she bought different breeds, that are not for meat.