Julia Hollander is going to be on this morning on Thursday.

[wannaBe]

have tv on in background and they just spoke about it. also said that if you would like to tell your story you can call them, or email them.

arse, got dd's splinting clinic and then OT's swing therapy thingy.
Having a disabled child means I haven't got time to watch TV, let alone appear on it!

I missed the beginning of the interview, but the part I saw has not changed my opinion, sadly.

we were told 4 hours after the birth that dd has suffered brain damage and would die, that if she did she wouldn't know who we were.
My first feeling was of overwhelming love and the desperate desire to see dd in case she died without me having ever held her. I inisisted they wheeled my bed (I was hemourrgahing) down to NICU that instant to see her and had to yell and threaten to toddle myself.
I had my hand on her while they worked to save her the entire time.
The worry came later.

I have emailed this morning

minorityrules

ummm, when my dd1 was five months old I was told she had great chunks of her brain missing and bits that were malformed (actually it wasn't put anywhere near as bluntly as that because I thankfully had a caring, compassionate paediatrician). Her diagnosis is aicardi syndrome and the prognosis was awful. In short everything told me she would not develop beyond the capacity of a 3 month old and would almost certainly die before she was 5.

Now thankfully, that hasn't been the case. But we didn't know that at 5 months.

And guess what? The idea of abandoning her never ever not once even crossed my mind. It wasn't that I decided I couldn't get rid of her, or I felt I had some kind of responsibility. It didn't cross my mind.

So actually, I do think I know how I would have reacted in JH's situation.

And before anyone even starts thinking 'oh well, that's very commendable etc etc but not all of us are saints', let me assure you I am not someone who would have imagined that is what my response would be before I had her. If truth be told, if I had found out when dd1 was in utero I almost certainly would have aborted, so convinced I would have been that I also wouldn't be able to cope.

But it was completely and utterly different because I was holding my baby, my flesh and blood, in my arms and I loved her absolutely no matter what.

And I'm not saying any of this to congratulate myself. I'm saying it because everyone keeps saying you can't judge until you've walked in someone's shoes etc. You know what I don't want to walk in Julia f*king Hollanders fancy f*cking jimmy choos, but I know what i would have done if Immie had been my daughter and it wouldn't have involved leaving her in a hospital and taking her stuff to the dump.

Sorry, that was rather a vent and probably not appropriate on this thread. I was actually about to post something else but minorityrules post just got to me. And I apologise for aiming my anger at you specifically.

What I was going to say is that if it makes anyone feel better Julia Hollander almost certainly isn't being paid for all the media interviews and appearances. They will have been set up by the book publisher as publicity for the book and will be part of the deal.

heartinthecountry love the shoes bit.
I am lucky I have never been told really bad stuff about my dd. tbh the docs went the other way and said she was mild!!!
even through the tough times before I entered the system not having dd with me never crossed my mind. ds was a nightmare for a while he was pretty mean(wow can anyone who has seem my posts about him believe that) I still didn't consider not having dd with me.
ds and dd are so close. the bond they have is unreal.
JH shortchanged her older child when she disposed of the "problem"
how sad is that.

Just because you, I and many others have done it and coped doesn't mean the ones that can't deserve this condemnation

Some Dr's are ott honest as they know some people don't want or can't take the road we have. They see how difficult it can be, they know the fight that is needed for education, equipment, therapy, respite etc

So the woman has been brutally honest about her feelings, it doesn't take away what we do, nor is it directed at us, it was her feelings. Feelings that many other parents have, if they didn't there wouldn't be many disabled children in foster care or up for adoption. They aren't all there due to terrible parenting, they are there due to parents choice

Some people can't deal with disability. Maybe through ignorance, fear, lack of education or a host of other reasons. These people never speak about it, Julia has.

Fine it was her feelings, She should make that clear and stop suggesting that she talks for all of us. She doesn't. She needs to stop saying that most parents of disabled children want to kill them. That would be a start.

Hi yurt,

I was puzzled at the line about most parents wanting to harm their disabled offspring.

Turns out JH was told that by a paed, when she was seeking help for herself so it's not really her words.

You know, when the lady was so bloody misinformed it is small wonder she saw herself as being unable to parent immie.

Just a thought...

Oh I know a paed said that- but paeds have said ridiculous things to me and I don't go saying them as 'truths' on national TV. If you are going to do that about such an extreme statement you have a duty to check out it's validity.

I can see why she latched onto it- as it validates what she did. But the fact that she didn't even question how true it was suggested to me that she needs therapy not book tours.

Can we not agree thought yurt (let's try and agree on something!!! Ha ha!)

What the paed said is actually a quite outrageous thing to say, and neither of us were suprised.

Absolutely. Totally agree with that.

And actually there are a lot of threads on here where we have to point out to people that paeds don't have crystal balls and tend to focus on the extreme negatives.

Has anyone noticed that the paed who told her all those things was, by JH's own description "a retired paediatrician". The extracts in the papers just talk about "a paediatrician"

ie some old codger who learnt his trade decades before told her all this bollox like "lots of parents decide they can't cope and gave their babies away". In the 50s maybe..... all this stuff was NOT said to her by the paeds looking after Immie. It looks to me like she only listened to what she wanted to hear, and what she wanted to hear was told to her by an out of date ex-paediatrician (probably a family friend)

Self-justification doesn't begin to describe it.

yes PPH I do agree with that, although I think the current paed talked about Immie being 'without intelligence' and that is the sort of thing they say (and shouldn't).

My recent best paed speak:

"I give every child I see Ritalin, then if it works I know they have ADHD...."

And no thats not some old stager 6 months off retirement. Suspect she had shares in CIBA/GEIGY though....

But, the problem is that JH might well have had some familly friend who was a retired paed. Think about it, you have a family friend, known you for years, etc etc etc.

Would you not trust them over someone you had barely met and who did not know you.

Only if they were saying what you wanted to hear - which in this case he clearly was.

PPH that is precisely my feeling.

that JH only spoke to people who she thought would support her in her decision. she knew she was not capable of loving Imogen and would eventually give her up to SS.

Rather than seek help and support she spoke to those she knew would tell her waht she needed to hear, to ease her guilt.

Her book and subsequent interviews and articles are about self justification and nothing more

It is an interesting fact of psychology that we all seem information that confirms our current beliefs over that which challenges or contradicts it.

It's a phenomenon called cognative dissonance.

Mamzon, you might well be right in what you say.

You might also be wrong....

she's on now. without Immie.

Just watched her. Nothing I saw changed my opinion of her. Infact I was shouting at the television. I actually feel sick.