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Believe it or not, It's flu season time. We've started our flu vaccination campaign in our hospital already and the atrium of our hospital has been converted into a flu vaccine center, trying to vaccinate as many patients as possible.

I've always viewed the decision of whether or not to get the flu shot akin to getting travel insurance when booking travel plans or like those extended warranties on various products: You could probably be just fine without it, but on the off-chance you were unlucky, it would save you some MAJOR PAIN.

How you deal with that risk says a lot about how likely you'd roll up your sleeves for that needle in the arm.

Now, I'm the type that never goes for that extra insurance or extended warranty, opting instead to gamble and live dangerously. But the flu vaccine is a slighly different story.

Putting aside the fact that I'm a health care worker who comes in daily contact with many chronically ill and debilitated patients and should be vaccinated yearly, the flu vaccine is recommended  by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)  and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) in pregnant woman who are pregnant during flu season. This is because pregnant women, even seemingly healthy pregnant women, are at higher risk for complications from flu than the general healthy population. Especially in late pregnancy, women who get the flu are just as likely to be hospitalized with complications as people with chronic medical conditions.

Despite knowing this, I have to admit that I harbor certain fears of putting anything "unnatural" in my body because I'm pregnant. While I do still take my allergy pills (since without them, I would be unable to function and would basically become ONE GIANT, MISERABLE SNIFFLE AND SNOT MONSTER and my OB said it was totally safe), I only take them when I absolutely have to, usually ending up being once every 1 1/2 or 2 days instead of once a day. I'm leery of alien injections introducing who-knows-what into my body, with who-knows-what sequelae in my unborn child.

I had these same fears during my first pregnancy when the whole flu shot issue came up and I struggled with what to do given my neurotic tendencies to fret about exposing the baby to "unnatural" substances. I realized that these public health recommendations come only after substantial research and reasoning to support their safety in the use of pregnant women and the overall benefit in the whole risk: benefit scenario of protecting myself and my fetus from what catching flu could do to both of us. I got my flu shot that year.

So, it's a no-brainer this year. Plus, my being protected from flu (at least the strain that the vaccine has been formulated against) will also protect Jolie from catching flu from me (and children from 6 months to age 5 years are another high-risk group when it comes to flu complications). The CDC recommends all household contacts of high-risk populations to also be vaccinated which basically is all parents of children from age 6 months to 5 years. This is news to me, I've never been told as a parent to get a flu shot, and I wonder how much public awareness there is about this.

I'm going to get vaccinated this week. And as much as it stresses me out to see my daughter go through the tears of getting a shot, the thought of her miserable with the flu is motivation enough to get her her flu shot too.

Lollipops. We'll need lollipops.

_{Disney Family does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Call your doctor regarding any medical condition. Never disregard your doctor's advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on the Disney Family site.}