What started your journey?

[Sijae]

So what started your investigation into vaccinations? For me it was when I was 15 and going to community college. My sociology professor had a son with severe vaccine damage and she used her position as a teacher to bring the message to all of her students. First she told us her story of how when her son was 2 months his father got him vax'd against her wishes and his reaction started with high pitched screaming all night. In the end he was left unable to control his body (wheelchair bound all his life) unable to feed himself, control his elimination, speak, or do anything else. Then one day she brought her son in to meet the class.

It was the saddest thing. It was all I needed to know my children would never get vax'd. I've learned a lot more since then but it was because of her that my children have never seen a needle. I wish I could remember her name so I could track her down and thank her!

So what started it for you?

Laura

[ERSsmom]

My brother who is 14 had a reaction to his two month vax. High pitched screaming on his way home from the doctors. Mom never vaxed him again or my sister. I still did my own research though. I wasn't sure if my mom was acting out of fear alone.

[BusyMommy]

My mw gave me an issue of Mothering which happened to feature the vax article. Same time that I met my new K student who was permanently disabled due to a vax at 2 years of age.

[japonica]

Just asking myself (and the health nurse) why on earth does a 2 month old need a tetanus vax? It was January in Canada, the ground was frozen solid and it was -20 C outside, she couldn't walk yet (so I couldn't see her puncturing herself somehow), I wasn't putting earth on her navel, so I wondered what was the deal with that vax and resolved to delay until I could look into it more.

It's been almost 20 months now and still no vaxes...

J

[Goddess3_2005]

I had a severe vax reaction to my first set of shots as a baby, my parents decided never to vax me or any of my other siblings ever again. My dads a natropathic doctor, so I was taught about vaccine dangers from early on, so I new before i had kids I wouldn't be vaxing. AndI have taught them about not vaxing. They tell me they will never get a poisen shot.:

[Plummeting]

There was no earth-shattering moment of revelation for me. We started out selectively vaccinating, when someone told me how many more shots babies get nowadays. We did Prevnar, Hib and IPV at 3 months. DD reacted terribly to Prevnar, so I did only Hib and IPV at 6 months, but as I read more, it became quite clear that no one has any idea what vaccines actually do to the human body, besides stimulate antibody production. No drug is without side effects, and it's silly to believe that any drugs designed to have LONG TERM effects on the body will have only SHORT TERM side effects. It's so obvious that this can't be true, but no one ever even thinks about it.

[Drummer's Wife]

I really wish I had started researching this before having children but instead I blindy vaccinated my first baby and started to with my second. When my 3rd was born I had a problem with getting him covered on the insurance and the ped's office wouldn't see him for the 2 month wbv so I started looking up "no shots for baby" or something similar using google ... seriously I felt like a bad mama since my baby was behind and was looking for some reasurrance that he'd be okay.

WOW it really opened my eyes. Before this I thought those who didn't vax were very religious or crazy : So I began my research and continue to learn something new everyday. This is something I feel pretty passionate about and I wish other's were informed before making such a huge decision.

And for some reason I declined the hep B shot at the hospital (though I planned on doing it at the first dr visit) so my last baby hasn't had any shots and I have stopped with my older two. As frustrating as my insurance problems were at the time, I truly believe that everything happens for a reason and I am grateful I started this journey.

-Katie

[Guest*]

As I did with most of my birth and parenting decisions, I started looking into the issue right before my dd was born. I intended to fully vax; I'd never heard of no one not doing it and I didn't really know it was a choice.

I started going down the list. At first I only looked at the diseases vaxed for and occurence rates. One by one, I started marking them off the list. The diseases were rare and rarely deadly. There were a couple vaxes that I couldn't decide on.

At my 6week pp appt with my midwife, I discussed it and she said she'd never vaxed her kids. She was the first person I knew of who didn't vax. She explained a little about exemptions and my decision to not vax was pretty much made right there.

I didn't even know it was a controversy until my decision was made. Since then, I'm SO glad I didn't. I've learned so much about health since then and vaccines do not fit into our lifestyle.

[Amydoula]

Unfortunately when I had Aidan I was a very good sheeple.....I followed everything that the doctor said to a tee including getting him every vax under the sun exactly when he was supposed to, of course I didn't even know that you could get an exemption and just assumed that it was the law that he needed vaxes. I came around very slowly to no vax, I was brainwashed pretty good and a lot of other AP/NFL things came first. Breastfeeding, Organic Food, no spanking, making my own cleaners, no circ etc. etc. I started subscribing to Mothering mag and then surfing around on the boards here. Things started to fall into place as I would spend hours after Aidan went to bed just reading on here, then I started reading the books that were recommended. It was especially after researching every disease and then every vax individually that I was able to come to the conclusion that Aidan, nor any of us will recieve ANY more vaxes. This took months but I'm very comfortable with the idea now and do still feel guilt about what I have given him, but hey "when you know better you do better"....and I'm doing better now!

Amy

[mattemma04]

I don't recall if it was 20/20 or Primetime that did a show on the HepB vaccine in 19998 or 1999.I was 8-9 months pregnant when I watched it.Seeing adults injured by the vaccine made me realize the cause of my own ill health,and that it was the vaccine despite EVERY DOCTOR FOR YEARS DENYING IT.Their typical response was ," Sometimes these things *just happen* and there is no cause."
Anyway knowing I would decline the hepB vaccine led to further research on the others.It was only then that I learned about inserts,VAERS,and the vaccine injury compensation program.

[cravenab00]

when I realized that the circumcsion of my sons was wrong, and that it wasnt medically necessary, I went through a very deep depression and anger.

And I began to think for myself, "if they lied about circ, what else are they lying about?"

and then began my journey.

[Luckyinlife]

When I was pg with my 1st son, my Mom told me I was never vaccinated and gave me a book to read 'A Shot In The Dark'. We had never discussed vax's before and I had NO opinion what so ever about them because I knew nothing about them so, I went on from that book and neither of my boys have had vax's

[forthebest]

I've nearly always been into natural living. Before my first dd was born I knew I didn't want to vax. My ex was not into it or homeschool and was a layabout knowitall who contributed nothing but damage. Luckily a friend who had not vaxed his dd lent me books on vaxing and actively encouraged me not to do it, which I wouldn't have but may have been coerced into by docs.DS fell off bike recently and needed stitches they wanted to give him tetanus and were real heavy about his non-vax status,the staff wouldn't look at me or communicate,luckily for us the UK was very low on tetanus vaccine at that point and we escaped.We are not at docs often so it was a sort of wake-up call for me.None of my kids have ever been vaxed.Straight online and found MDC and now I have got seriously back into finding out all I can about vaxing,nutrition,disease and of course all the invaluable info there is here.THANKYOU!

[mammom]

About ten years ago I dated a guy who was in chiropractic school. He mentioned vaccines once, saying he wouldn't vaccinate his kids if he ever had any. He also mentioned that polio rates went up after the wide-spread use of the vaccine. I had that conversation in the back of my mind when I was pregnant with ds and discussed it with my chiro I was seeing while pregnant. He said he didn't vax his kids and that he had been to a seminar where scientists were speaking - they wouldn't say on record that they wouldn't vax their own kids, but said so later, privately. He suggested I read "A Shot in the Dark."

I was so horrified by "A Shot in the Dark" that I couldn't IMAGINE that things were still the same - they HAD to have changed things since the 80s. So then I read Cave's book (what your doctor may not tell you...) and realized things had not really changed. I was pretty sure we would not vaccinate, but was a little scared not to (it's what you DO, afterall!). The more I read (Romm's book came next, then MDC), the more sure I was we would never vax our babe!

[wonderwahine]

something in my gut always made me feel a little iffy, but i was ignorant and thought that the drs knew best.......then being on here, and seeing so many non vaxing moms, i thought....why not investigate it, so many moms wouldnt choose not to if there was nothing wrong with them. Then i heard some firsthand stories from moms on here about vaccine injurys or deaths.......and REALLY decided to look into it. I started out thinking i would do a delayed schedule..........but after some things i read, me and dh both decided no vaxs was safer.

[MyLittleWonders]

Our journey (mine and dh's) actually didn't begin with medical issues. We started with questioning religion, and actually, that experience, as difficult as it was, lead us to realize that we were *allowed* to question things in our lives. So, next we started questioning health and nutrition issues. (Mind you, I had already been on MDC for over a year at this point, knew there was a vax board and *knew* people on here who didn't vax ... but I didn't think about it in terms of something that was okay to do, iykwim.) When we realized the USDA and doctors really didn't know much of anything about true health and nutrition, we began to question everything else doctors and the government told us was best for us. So, from there, we slowly ventured into vaxes and then circumcism. Unfortunately, our first two boys are vax'd up through 2 years and 18 months respectively. They are also both circ'd. Our 3rd son has not had anything sharp touch any part of his body, and hopefully never will. The hardest part, I think, has been forgiving ourselves for doing things the way we did before we knew better.

[krissi]

I was working on a website and stumbled across some information about a link between the MMR and autism. It piqued my interest. We were supposed to give DD her third HepB vax at her 9 month WBV but the doc told us to wait until next time because we didn't have her official shot record. Then I read an article about vaxes in Mothering magazine that made me start wondering about a link with chronic diseases. I started Googling and learned that although everyone claimed there was no evidence of a link, no one had been able to rule out a link either. A real kicker for me was learning that the IOM claimed there was "insufficient evidence to confirm or deny" that vaxes caused allergies and asthma.

So at DD's 1-year checkup we informed the ped we were not going to be vaxing her anymore until she turned 2, because chronic disease ran in the family. But then during the following year she started showing symptoms of speech delays, I became convinced that my IgA nephropathy was a vax reaction, I started lurking in this forum, and it went from there.

[EVC]

had a problem with getting him covered on the insurance and the ped's office wouldn't see him for the 2 month wbv so I started looking up "no shots for baby" or something similar using google ... seriously I felt like a bad mama since my baby was behind and was looking for some reasurrance that he'd be okay.

WOW it really opened my eyes. Before this I thought those who didn't vax were very religious or crazy So I began my research and continue to learn something new everyday. This is something I feel pretty passionate about and I wish other's were informed before making such a huge decision.

This is almost exactly what happened to me!

[kittywitty]

My interest and hatred of vaxing came when I was given the last of my many chicken pox vaccines. That was scary and it made me wonder why they would do that to me. Sure I was a kid, but then when I had my dd#1 I did not want to give her the shots because I had read a bit about them and wanted to wait until I knew more. I was told that my dd would be taken away and given to CPS. So she got them. Same with ds. Then when it came time for the chicken pox vax for them, I put it off as long as possible. I made every excuse. But then they threatened CPS again and that they would force my kids out of their daycare (I am in school, so I NEEDED daycare). So they got them.

Now with dd#2, she had so many problems. I actually found mothering looking for knitting patterns. And when I saw these vax threads, I knew that I finally found people like me and they can't take my kids. So no more vax for us!

[AngelaB]

My second son was diagnosed with autism at age 3. When I started looking back on what could have caused this I realised that he started loosing his speech right after the MMR, Prevnar, Hib and Dtap.

My journey has been a snowball effect of finding a little snip of information and that turning into more questions and so on. I came to the vax forums because I had received so much info planning my vbac and researching on the pregnancy board that I figured I would be enlightened here as well.

Ds1 c-sec for breech, vaxed but no boosters, circed
Ds2 vbac nonmedicated ,vaxed to 12 months, no boosters, not circed
Ds3 vbac birth center,no vax, no circ, and we will breastfeed for at least 2 years instead of the one year with the other boys.

Im getting better at this!!!