Why I, personally, have chosen to NOT vaccinate my son.

I could write a book on this subject, but there are already decent books out there, and I doubt anyone would listen to someone without a PHD in medicine anyway...lol

I am not going to quote statistics or books or articles here...everyone is fully capable of doing their own research.  I will recommend Dr. Sear's book on vaccines because he talks about each vaccine individually, and I know many mamas who have chosen to selectively vaccinate or follow his delayed schedule, which works for them.

So, I'll start by saying that before I conceived my son, I believed what I had been taught - that vaccines were good, and that people who refused to vaccinate their children were either ignorant, or religious zealots, or both.

Then, I met my midwife, and through her I met many happy, healthy families who chose to not vaccinate.  During my journey towards my un-medicated, painless, joyful home birth, I learned to trust my body, to trust my instincts, and to question every belief I held.

My first question about vaccines was, "do they work?"  And the answer I found was, "sometimes."  Booster shots are necessary because vaccinated immunity can wear off, or never take; whereas true immunity, from exposure to the actual disease, usually lasts a lifetime.

Our immune systems are not separate from the rest of the systems in our body.  One of the flaws of our medical system, and of science in general, is that they look at pieces and bits and try to extrapolate what they learn about the bits to the whole.  Another flaw of the medical system is that it focuses on treatment rather than prevention.  Yet another is that healthy people simply don't go to the clinic or the hospital anywhere near as often as unhealthy people do.  Doctors, nurses, and other medical workers live in a world full of disease and damaged systems, usually of anonymous people that they see once a year or less when they are healthy.  They don't look at the body as a whole, they look at symptoms and do their best to deduce a diagnosis and treatment.  And they get it wrong.  Often.

Vaccination is supposed to be about prevention, but it doesn't always work.  The best way to prevent disease, and to recover quickly from it, is to keep the immune system and the body strong with enough sleep, enough water, enough nutrients from whole foods, enough exposure to the sun on a daily basis (approximately 20 minutes plus time for our bodies to absorb the vitamin D our skin produces before showering,) limiting sugar, animal products, and other processed crap, and enough exercise.  The medical world would rather sell insulin pumps than teach type 2 diabetics how to eat and exercise properly, for many reasons, and many people would rather pop pills and even get shots and surgery than change their lifestyles.

Vaccines are dangerous.  That has been proven without a doubt to my mind.  There are far more deaths and serious complications resulting from vaccination than there are deaths or permanent injuries due to the diseases vaccines are supposed to protect us from.

Herd immunity is a dangerous myth.  The idea that every one should be vaccinated to protect the few who can't be is flawed.  First, it relies on the idea that immune people can't carry a disease that they are immune to.  That is false.  Recently vaccinated people are far more dangerous to people with compromised immune systems than an unvaccinated person could ever be.

Even if we did eradicate all the disease that we vaccinate for (which we CAN TREAT,) different diseases would replace them.  We already have terrifying superbugs that we can't treat because of the excessive use of antibiotics, antivirals, and other drugs.

It also promotes the idea that unvaccinated children are disease factories, which is ludicrous.  My son is almost two and a half years old, and over his lifetime so far he has had a stomach bug for 48 hours, and a cold twice for 24 hours or less.  Meanwhile, I've had all of my shots, and before I went vegan, I was sick for two weeks out of every month.  Since I've changed my diet, I have only been sick for 24 hours or less two or three times - still more often than my son.

Unvaccinated children get sick less frequently than vaccinated children, especially if they are also breastfed.  Breastfed babies have their mother's immune system until their own immune system fully develops, around age 2.  That means, whatever we are immune to, they are.  And often, our breasts will give them the antibodies they need even when our own immune systems fail to do the same for us.  Nursing mamas often get sick while their babies remain healthy.

I also learned that diseases were already on the decline before vaccines were introduced, and in some cases, vaccines caused the incidences of certain diseases to increase.  Nutrition, clean water, and hygiene improved before vaccines were invented, and were already helping people's bodies fight the diseases.  Studies that "prove" vaccines are effective don't take other lifestyle or environmental factors into account.  They often are funded by groups that profit from the use of vaccines.

The most frightening thing is the preservatives, known carcinogens, toxins, and things that we don't know exactly what effect they have...in quantities too high for comfort, injected into the bloodstream of developing infants and toddlers, whose tiny bodies and high metabolisms make them much more susceptible than adults to adverse reactions.  And the vaccines we have now have not been around long enough to know what effect they will have in the long term.

From every thing that I have researched, it is my belief that the chemicals in vaccines, combined with the toxins in our foods, our environments, our clothes, our cosmetics, sunscreen, bug spray, soap, our water, the very air we breath, combine to weaken or wreck our immune systems, and disturb the chemistry of our blood and our brains, leading to an increase in every single problem a human can have.  Diabetes, Multiple Sclerosis, Cancer, Lupus, Autism, Depression, ADHD, and diseases we are giving new names to every day are constantly on the rise.  KIDS have all this stuff now!  The amount and frequency of vaccines has increased dramatically in the last twenty years, and so has the amount and frequency of health problems of the children who are injected.

One thing I have learned is that there is never just ONE cause.  But some things, when eliminated, can make a world of difference.  My son and I eat nutritious whole foods, organic when possible, drink plenty of liquids, limit the amount of toxic chemicals in our air and on our skin, get exercise outside every day, and give our bodies enough sleep, keeping them as strong as we can.  That's working for us, as it works for many, MANY other families.

I'm not anti-vaccine - I think they have their place.  In countries with poor access to clean water and nutritious food, and available treatment, vaccines can help.  But this isn't one of those countries, and vaccines have no place in my family.

How did my thesis defense go?

A thesis defense for the MFA in Creative Writing at UCF is a requirement for graduation that can only be performed once.  If I fail my defense, that's it.  Bye bye, eight years of my life, way too many student loans, and all my hard work...and no degree to show for it.  When I started the program, my thesis adviser told me that a committee usually would not let a student defend unless they felt the student was ready to pass.

I couldn't sleep last night because I was so excited and nervous.  After 8 long, chaotic years, and two previous failed attempts at scheduling a defense, I would finally be taking that irrevocable step.  My committee didn't contact me other than to say they received my complete draft, Birth of a Mother, and my adviser didn't even confirm that.  I sent off my most recent revision a full day later than I was supposed to, and I felt like the last two chapters and the epilogue especially needed more work.  Worse, I'd only gotten feedback from my adviser on the prologue and the first two chapters, so my revisions of chapters 3 on were just me, all me, and that was pretty damn terrifying.

I'd also invited everyone I knew to attend my defense, and I worried about embarrassing myself.  I headed to Orlando this morning with my heart pounding, chanting, "They wouldn't let me defend if they didn't think I was ready..."

Aiden had his hat and his blankie, so he was ready.

This is going to be a super long post if I chronicle the whole day, so let's skip to the start of my defense.

I went in expecting my committee to tell me that I had a lot of work to do, but if I could pull it off in a week or so, they'd consider signing my form so I could graduate.

Aiden started us off by climbing on the conference table and saying, "Hmm!"

My committee members laughed and asked if they could have him at every defense.  Satisfied that he had everyone's attention, Aiden then explored the room, occassionally demanding food or assistance from me, but not disrupting, not really.  He was more like an accent, or punctuation.  Which is fitting, since he was the inspiration for my thesis.

My adviser started by saying that my work passed the turnitin.com check, as if there could be any doubt! lol  Then she had me read aloud a selection.  I chose to read the scene where I revealed my pregnancy to my then-boyfriend, and then the father (a different man.)

Then the questions started.  My adviser asked questions about what I found to be the most challenging techniques as well as subject matter, and other questions designed to reveal what I knew about non-fiction writing, writing in general, and what I learned from the program and the project.  My fiction teacher and my poetry teachers both complimented me on my work and asked me how I came up with the structure, what research I did, how I could expand on what was already there, and both surprisingly spent a lot of time complimenting both my thesis as well as my previous work.  My poetry teacher remembered me guest speaking in her domestic violence class seven years ago!

After the question and answer session, my committee sent my guests (my two best friends, my mother's best friend, and a good mama friend,) Aiden, and me outside so they could deliberate.

After a few long moments, my adviser came out and congratulated me on passing.  My fiction and poetry committee members signed off on my form, and my professor promised to sign off on it after I make the revisions we talked about during the discussion.  Then we all exchanged hugs, they gave me marked copies of my revision, and we all went our seperate ways.

My two best friends and I went to Chipotle for lunch, where Aiden ran around, happy to be free of the car and stroller.  That was when I saw the note from my fiction committee member:

"Ashley, let me first tell you that I was absolutely floored with joy reading this.  The life you write about is far from pretty at times, and yet, this is such a life-affirming testament to love that I can barely stand to read it as a TEACHER.  I just want to read it, experience it.  That's a sure testament to your talent.

I told my wife, May, about this and read a short excerpt, and she is dying to read the whole thing.  And believe me, May knows quality better than I.  She sucked at English and is a nurse in cardiac care.  So if your story catches her attention, this promises a great readership beyond the workshop confines.

Bottom line: you are one hell of a writer.  I do think the story could/should be expanded a bit - not too much, but closer to 200 pages I think.  I've marked some obvious spots, but I trust your instincts.

As is, you could send this off NOW and get interest from agents and publishers.  I love it, love you for writing it."

I almost cried reading that!  I walked into my thesis defense expecting to be scolded for turning in sub-par work, and was instead told by all three committee members both aloud and in writing that though my ending could be stronger, my thesis is powerful, compelling, beautiful, and something that needs to be published!