I follow a feed that shares the personal stories of parents' experiences with vaccinations. Here is one such. It was accompanied with a picture of a healthy, bright-eyed newborn, which I am not placing here. It's enough to hear the story and the personal testimony. Anecdotal, but one among hundreds of thousands of such similar.
"My sweet Kori minutes after she was born. My all-time favorite picture of her! Fresh from the womb. Look how bright eyed and alert. She instantly latched on and nursed on and off for hours and was just a chill baby.
"That evening they took her from me to do their thing and when they brought her back she was a total different baby. Screaming her head off and would constantly spit up and gag. When they took her back, I went ahead and made my husband go home with the other kids because I felt safer with them at their own home and I thought everything was good. I could not get her to stop crying. And already being an emotional, tired, drained, wreck I was losing my mind. I remember calling my husband crying telling him I don’t know what to do with her. Even then, I didn’t connect the dots. From that time on, she was very uncomfortable and wouldn’t latch so I had to start her on formula which broke me into pieces .
"Her two months appointment came, took her to her pediatrician got her jabs and within a few days she was doing the same screaming and wouldn’t eat. She then ran a fever and had like upper respiratory issues so we took her to the emergency room and they tortured her with x-rays, etc. It was the longest days and nights of our lives and for the longest time she looked like a sick baby. Her eyes were very sickly looking. Always in a daze. She never slept, always cried.
"Four month appointment took her back to the doctor, got her four months shots, then later that evening it was even more hell. I immediately took her back to the pediatrician. Told her that it’s definitely the vaccines and I no longer want to give her any more, her pediatrician agreed but instead she was set on delaying them. Thats when I started doing heavy research and that’s when I found the truth. I connected with other moms with similar, horrific stories but so sadly so many ended up losing their baby to SIDS. It absolutely still makes me sick to this day knowing all the signs were there, and she could’ve easily been a victim.
"That’s when I started connecting the dots of what my other children went through including my 15-year-old getting meningitis after her vaccines when she was a newborn. No one told me that meningitis was listed as an adverse reaction. I could go on about some of the illnesses and ER visits of my older children coincidentally right after vaccines but I’ll keep this short.
"After 10 years of this fight, being known as a crazy anti-vaxxer especially by family, with some even making comments that the things that happened to me didn’t happen - its truly been a nightmare.
"I lost many friends, had the most horrifying things said to me. But I kept fighting for my kids because by this time I had older kids in school and no exemptions were allowed except for medical and that was impossible to get.
"Then my older daughter, who I now know also reacted horribly to vaccines, was due for her seventh grade shots. By this time we had to choose a different pediatrician because we hadn’t been in years and our other pediatrician who did listen to me had retired. When we took her to the new pediatrician, trying to get the medical exemption, we told him our concerns. hiss response was to say I needed a bopp upside my head. He said very disrespectful things about me in front of my kid, even after all the things that we told him that had happened. No sympathy, no compassion, nothing. That same doctor died of a heart attack a few years ago who wasn’t even very old.
"Mocking and belittling mothers isn’t something anyone should do. It makes me wonder how many other mothers he did this to. He was a pediatrician that was well loved and had a great personality, but sadly, his personality was only great if you let him control you and you blindly trusted him. If you spoke up and had questions, he was a totally different person. We all know those pediatricians are all about the bonuses.
"So now, seeing the vaccine doses go from 72 doses to 28 feels so right now. Hopefully we will see much healthier babies, less SIDS cases and hopefully mothers will question the other vaccines that are still left on the schedule. No vaccine is good! And since doctors will not be rewarded for the amount of vaccines given, hopefully they will no longer bully or pressure these parents.
"All the mothers and fathers that I’ve connected with this last decade, as we watched new victims come helplessly on social media looking for answers, crying together, made us even louder and fight even harder, I want to thank you! Thank you for your support, your guidance, because some of you have been in this fight since the 90s, some even longer, educating me, and making sure I’m up-to-date with things that were being brought to light behind closed doors. Most importantly thank you for your listening ears and friendship.
"And even with this huge step in the right direction, this fight isn’t over yet and we have so much more to do. Keep being loud."
Two can play that game . . .