To start off with a bit about my educational background. I have my degree in Psychology. When I first decided to pursue Psychology (originally I was going to be an astrophysicist but that is another story) I was just going to do general studies and work towards being a clinical psychologist. However a few things happened to change my area of focus. In the end my focus was Abnormal Psychology, specifically Abnormal Psychology of Infant/Children and Adolescence (a relatively new field). First one was that my mother was diagnosed with a myriad of psychological disorders, the worse of which is bipolar with schizoid tendencies. The second was my oldest son was started to display a lot of ADHD symptoms. The third, and the hardest one to deal with, was neurological and brain development issues with my youngest, which started in utero.

When I was four months pregnant with my youngest, we received some very scary news. During a routine ultrasound, it was found that I had partial placenta previa and this would have to monitored. I was to go back for a second ultrasound a month later to see if my placenta would start to migrate to where it should be on its own or if not, well there is a lot that can go wrong with that condition. So for about a month, I worried about my unborn child and the possibility of miscarriage or hemorrhaging. Now it was time for the follow up ultrasound. During the ultrasound, the tech got very quiet and called in the Radiology doctor to take a look at the scan. He was very quiet and had a very grave look on his face. He left the room and I asked what was wrong and was told you will have to wait till you see your doctor again. Now how the system works here, you do not get a phone call from the doctor unless you have an abnormal test. Well I didn’t need to get that call because the techs do not call in the head doctor unless there is an issue that they are unable to diagnose. Due to this, I was waiting for a call from my doctor’s office to come in ASAP. One did not come. So I booked my own appointment as I could not wait through the Christmas holidays until my six month check up to find out what was wrong. The first thing I asked my doctor was what was wrong with my baby. He didn’t know what I was talking about. So I told him about the events surrounding my last ultrasound. He informed me he had not received the report yet and he would check his office to see if it were there. He returned back to the exam room with another grave look on his face, holding the report. He said that he was sorry, but there are abnormalities in the baby’s brain. I asked him what kind. He said that his left lateral ventricle was twice the size of normal and that his right posterior horn was dilated. My next question was, “Ummm what? What causes that? What does that mean? Does the baby have encephalitis? WHAT?” He had no clue as it is not something that he has ever seen in his medical career. He told me I was to go to the mainland (Vancouver, British Columbia. I live on Vancouver Island) to the women’s hospital within the week for further tests. I told him that would be impossible as I do not have a vehicle, we need to find another way. I received a phone call a couple days later that I was to head down to Victoria the next day to the special obstetrics unit where the rest of my primary prenatal care would be carried out (and FYI, I am really attempting to make a long story short here, however it is a really long story).

So down the Victoria I went where began my bi-weekly tests and exams. After the first visit, I was sent to get a bunch of blood work done that would be sent off to the CDC (I believe they did 100 tests for a myriad of odd diseases). One of their major concerns was that I had never been vaccinated and my Rubella titre was zero. Now the reason I have never been vaccinated is because I am allergic to eggs and a lot of vaccines are grown in egg white protein. Given my lack of family history of abnormal brain phenomena, they thought I may have contracted some bizarre disease that would have caused the brain abnormalities in my fetus. To make matters even more scary, they gave me the sex of my child (they do not do that here unless you are risk for losing the baby for a variety of legal reason). And to compound fear, there was talk of having to put a shunt into the baby’s brain while he was still in utero to get rid of the water on his brain. Test results came back, everything was negative. Every two weeks, they would do another ultrasound to check the swelling in his head and finally at around 7.5 months, the ventricle started to go to a normal size. The specialists wanted me to deliver in Victoria where there could be a team of doctors at his birth. I refused since my doctor would not be able to deliver (very important to me as he has been my doctor since I was 6 and is like a second dad to me). I assured the specialists we could assemble the same team at my local hospital, but I would not deliver anywhere else.

There was 3 doctors and 4 nurses present when it came time to have him. The deliver did not go smoothly. The cord was wrapped around his neck and they had to force my cervix open when I was 9 cms dilated as his heart rate was dropping rapidly. Then when he was born, he was not breathing and when they finally got him to breath, was not alert. He was cyanotic. A scary pregnancy was followed by a very scary delivery. And well more problems occurred after he was born that really is not too relevant on this topic, however to illustrate a point that will come, it was a very stressful time. He had to have another ultrasound on his head before we were released from hospital and then a CT scan when he was one month old. The CT showed that there was still the abnormalities shown from the ultrasound, however not severe enough anymore to worry. What we did have to monitor, however, was that his right temporal lobe had atrophied slightly.

Now came the early days. It was awful. You could not hold him chest to chest otherwise he would become stiff as a board and scream as if someone were killing him. The only way he would allowed to be touched was that if you were holding him with his back to your che
st. Nursing was a huge pain. He wanted to nurse and was a huge eater, however he was constantly pushing away because of the front to front contact and then would freak out when he would lose the nipple. So came some very creative ways (football hold being the easiest) to nurse so that it was not a constant struggle. Every week like clockwork on Wednesday, he would stay up for 2 days straight. At around 2 years of age, that changed to every second week. And heaven forbid I would ever leave the room. A few of his motor skills were developmentally delayed as well.

We had to see an infant development specialist once a month and the pediatrician every two weeks. As he got older (even so we had a lot of challenges due to the Autistic tendencies) we got to have fun with some of his “neurosis”. He was and continues to be a sorter. He would spend hours a day sorting and lining up all of toys. One of the things he would spend hours on was lining up all of his cars (he had at 200 of them) back bumper to front bumper in a perfectly straight line. He would then leave the room. Then either his father or I would change just one of the cars so that it was pointing the wrong way. Instantly upon my son re-entering the room, he would see what car was out of place and then spend a few more hours fixing it. Taking him shopping was a nightmare. If anybody would look at him (and worse talk to him) he would have the biggest meltdown. His meltdowns (both inside the house and outside) would most often lead to vomiting. Now what I have just described is just a small fraction of what we had to deal with when it came to my youngest. We had issues to deal with (not nearly as bad) when it came to my oldest. My oldest was the easiest baby but as he got older (as often does) his behaviors got more difficult and eventually he was diagnosed with severe ADHD and ODD. My youngest was never given a label beyond displaying Autistic tendencies as a label was not needed for him to receive the treatments and supports he needed. Thankfully due to behavioral therapies, for the most part my youngest is able to manage and self sooth with very few meltdowns.

Now comes the question, were my children vaccinated? My oldest was and my youngest had to stop being vaccinated after his 12 month vaccine as he had 2 neurological reactions to vaccines in a row. I have never been vaccinated. For my family, the fact two of us are not vaccinated is a very thing. One of the biggest reasons is because I have Lupus (more about that here)and I have no immunity. Anytime there is any form of outbreak of anything (flu included) I am not allowed to leave my house since a simple flu could kill me. My youngest has no immunity (he was exposed to chicken pox many times as a baby however he was nursing at the time and was provided with temporary immunity). If he were to contract any of the diseases vaccines protect against, he could die as well.

According to the antivaxx community, vaccines are the cause of pretty much any abnormality that is not chromosomal in children. Well (and this is not science but anecdote) one of my children was vaccinated and the other was not and they both have a “disorder” according the the DSM-IV. Now some may argue that if I had vaccinated my youngest fully, his tendencies would be worse or they are explained by the abnormalities while he was developing in utero. Exactly how or why these things happen is a whole different topic at hand which I could write about for hours. If you read my comments on Dr. Phil Plait’s blog entitled Are Antivaxxers Liable for Death I go into that briefly there. The reason why I am writing this tonight is because I felt it the responsible thing to do to explain my comment to the person that stated us “science” people don’t get it. Most of us do get it more than those with antivaxx agendas could ever understand. We deal with it in a more real way than they have to. Not only do we have family members that are afflicted with different issues and it could be very easy to blame it something outside of genetics so that we don’t feel as if we failed our children by breeding our faulty genes, we continue to do research and to teach in hopes that we can find REAL answers, instead of blaming something that has been proven over and over again to not be linked to Autism or other childhood issues.

julia sherred