E was in for his 15 month well-baby today, and at the end of the appointment his pedi left and a nurse came in to give him his vaccines. Today he got 4 injections (ugh): DTaP, PedvaxHIB, second dose of flu, and for the first time, MMR II.

So we'd already been there an hour and a half. E, due for a nap, was already restless and cranky. The nurse comes in (she's new), gives us the side-eye when we let him run around the room instead of immediately holding him down (she was still prepping the needles).

She takes forever to get the first three done, which was bad enough because he's a solid child*, and it took both me and D to keep him still enough. Then, as she was getting ready to give him the MMR, casually tells us that this one is going to hurt him even more than the others...that it was going to burn a lot.

Seriously lady, why would you tell us that?? And then as she's injecting it and he's screaming she says again "This is burning him a lot!". And then after, as I'm nearly in tears (for the first time since his very first vaccinations), she says again "That one burned him a lot."

I wanted to throw something at her! We vaccinate fully and on schedule, but it's already not something I like to do--who likes to see their child in pain? But being told--3 TIMES--exactly how much it was hurting him? So.much.worse. I'd have just as soon not known!

Ugh.

I know that getting the disease would be a billion times worse than the momentary pain of the vaccine, and he was fine by the time we got him strapped into the car seat, but still. If I was a parent already wavering about vaccines that comment might have put me on the "don't vaccinate" side. Hell we're pretty firm about getting vaccinated and it made me waver!

*I'm sure you were wondering--my solid toddler weighed in at 27lbs, 8oz and 33.2" tall (95th and 96th percentiles, respectively). Kid is tall muscle.