Yes, I'm just so scared....quivering in my boots actually. *eyeroll* Puh-leeze....
First take a look at the comments section on my previous post. You'll note that I have a rather pathetic anonymous commenter, who came over from Erin's blog I think. Erin's been enduring some vicious troll attacks from creeps who think it's appropriate to accuse her of killing her baby on her personal blog, a blog devoted to Birdie who died following a c-section in hospital after a homebirth transfer. It started on Tuesday this week with an attack from a supposed midwife, and has continued with attacks from Doctors, mostly anonymous, too scared to sign their own names and take responsibility for their comments.
Now, I haven't had a homebirth, but I also didn't feel the need because a few of my local hospitals including the one I gave birth at every time are so freakin' crunchy and all natural they could out-midwife the most home birthing midwives collective on earth. But I totally understand the desire of many women to homebirth, especially if they are low risk like Erin and can have two certified trained midwives there with them, like we can in Ontario. Between C difficile and SARS and MSRA in NICUs, I for one, get the concerns about hospital borne infections and unecessary interventions.
I have always believed that we should be looking for a middle ground, that "right-sizes" medical interventions, giving them the care they need, but not subjecting them to unneeded procedures and medications.
Most of all, we should be kind and compassionate to others always. Cruelty is NEVER okay, and blaming a woman for causing the death of her own child is beyond the pale IMO. Guilt over our babies deaths is an automatic part of the package for grieving mothers, even when we have the highest tech medical treatment and proof from a pathology report that we did all the right things, so the last thing we need is for someone to rub salt in the wound.
Anonymous I know that to you I'm just another impersonal webpage to troll, but in real life, I have your IP address and you aren't bothering me one whit, but I DO view you and your ilk as a perfect example of why I need to keep on fighting for better treatment of grieving parents.
Gee, I wonder how many children the troll has, and whether it would be singing a different tune if it was unable to reproduce? Just asking, you know...
ReplyDeleteI love it how we are supposed to shut up and take it and how our concerns are so small we should disregard them. Right. I had a fertility doc tell me PCOS has no cure and I will have to have IVF. I did my own research and guess what? It has no cure, but it can be managed, and I was able to manage it to the point where I have regular cycles and ability to get pregnant without interventions. Useless, all that time on the puter and at the library. Useless, I tell you.
Wonder how happy the trolls are in their actual lives that they have the need to go stomp on people who are down? I'd tell them to go pick on someone their own size, but that would mean only picking on small pathetic little trolls like themselves, and I understand how that would be no fun for them...
Well said Aurelia, & Julia.
ReplyDeleteI used to think "to each their own," but internally think "I could never do that," when it came to infertility treatments. Well, I guess I don't need to, but I need all the intervention in the world to carry a baby to term, so now it all seems a bit more sensible to me.
As for the name calling & accusations, well, that's hardly worth a response, but it does hurt to see it. Intensely.
Next time if you're going to point out a troll, Aurelia, at least make it something original enough to be worth my energy. I've read that one before, and it was just as enlightened then.
ReplyDeleteBea
Anyone who is unwilling to be traced to a blog or name is a miserable coward who doesn't, frankly, deserve to be acknowledged since they don't even have the courage to acknowledge themselves. Next?
ReplyDeleteAs for wasting time/money/energy, anonymous seems to have done a good job of that with the half hour spent trolling your blog. S/he would have done better to spend it out volunteering somewhere -- doing something truly useful -- the whole goose and gander thing.
ReplyDeleteSo unnecessary and cruel. Thanks for standing up for Erin, and all of us.
ReplyDeleteAnns xo
I came over here from Erin's blog...
ReplyDeleteThis is all so painful to read. All of it. Thank you for going to bat for Erin. And thank you for being strong and eloquent.
Wow, I don't read blogs for 2 days and look at the stuff I have missed.
ReplyDeleteI just don't get some people. Why do they think that they have the right to judge and criticize others. And if you do have the gall to do that, at least be willing to put your name to it. If you believe something strongly enough, have the guts to acknowledge that or stay the fuck off the blogs of those of us who do express our opinions with honesty, integrity and without anonymity. Cowards, and they deserve no further recongition.
ReplyDeleteI had missed this, and when I went back to read the comment from anonymous you are referring to, I cracked up. That was the most inane, juvenile jumble of words I have ever read. I half expected the next words out of his/her "mouth" to be "All the cool kids are doing it" or "I triple dog dare you!"
ReplyDeleteI could hardly believe the words I was reading when I read anonymous' comments. How could another human being be so lacking in empathy? Maybe that's our explanation. Robots can't feel anything...oh and I think we can also include psychopaths in that category.
ReplyDeleteAurelia,
ReplyDeleteI have been trying to figure out what to write here (re trolls and Erin's new trauma) but basically want to stand in solidarity with the community that held me up when I was beaten.
I have so many different 'agendas' that come to bare in this debate - mother of living children, mother of dead babies, subfertile, wannabe crunchy but recipient of three surgical deliveries - but most of all human who weeps when a mother loses her child, who weeps when a would-be mother travels to the ends of the earth to bring a perfect life into being and can't. Any parent who cannot understand the lengths people go to in order to have children leave me cold.
So, as imbecillic as these trolls are, it is confronting to know that there are people out there whose hearts are so hardened.
I am surprised that Anonymous gives a flying f*ck about third world countries - s/he doesn't care about the people living right in front of him/her.
I wish I was more eloquent but I just want to be counted among those who are willing to close ranks around those who have suffered the most indescribable of tragedies and find themselves struggling and weakened by it.
And of course, I am very sorry for the loss of your son.