By Elissa Caterfino Mandel

My youngest son calls me searching for titer guidance. He’s not sure about the blood tests or vaccines he should be getting, so he can be cleared to see his new niece. Who is this person? On one hand, he is the former teenager I once had to lobby — no, plead with — to get a flu shot. But now, he is a 25-year-old with an unhealthy fixation about CDC vaccination sites.

Some people assume the only thing families have to do to get ready for a new baby is set up a crib and a car seat. For the extended expectant family, that’s not true, at least not anymore. Rather than gifts, we have to bring injected versions of ourselves when we meet the new baby — or bloodwork that shows we have titers aka immunity. This is not as easy as it sounds. My youngest son doesn’t even have an internist.

Luckily, my son should be fine with his 1994 measles inoculation; he was not born on the cusp of vaccine chaos the way I was. As a 1961 baby, I recently learned the MMR vaccine I got was probably subpar. Oh, goody. The next thing I’ll find out is that my high school diploma was also a fake.

It’s strange I’m in the role of vaccine arbiter, given that I usually slip up and refer to the MMR as the MMRI.

While my son ekes out a pass on the MMR, he does need a Tdap booster, an inoculation against whooping cough. I also tell him to confirm that the chicken pox vaccine he got at around age five is still protective. The parents to be haven’t mentioned a particular fear of chicken pox. But I figure I might as well use my son’s new openness to shots to satisfy my own curiosity.

It’s true, I’m not having a baby. But as I compile my family vaccination statistics, I feel like I’m on the front lines of parenthood again. Three of my four boys are good. My parents are covered. My husband and I have a plan. The one outlier is the family dog.

I did not lobby for the position of vaccine enforcer, but I can appreciate the impulse behind wanting a healthy child. Twenty nine years ago, I remember calling my own mother- in-law to ask if anyone in her family had diabetes. I’m not sure what moved me to ask such a stupid question, which was more like an accusation.

And what was my poor mother-in-law supposed to do if someone did have diabetes? It’s not as if I were going to rescind my entire pregnancy because of a misguided fear of some inherited condition. Yes, your son impregnated me, but you know what? I don’t really want any of your genetic material. I was an anxious pain in the ass.

And this is a much scarier time in the childhood disease world than 1990 was. I don’t mind getting shots. Bring them on. It’s the least I can do to make sure my new grandchild is safe.

There is an impulse when you’re about to deliver a baby to not want a nasty thing like the world to impinge upon the experience. I remember that feeling. But my kids are almost all in their 30s now. They’re good people, willing to take time out of their lives to get the vaccinations they need to meet our family’s newest member. In retrospect, I’m pretty glad the world has done whatever it did.