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Myah Walker and Her "Baby"


KittyNakajima

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http://babyfaithhope.blogspot.com/

The above link leads to a blog by Myah Walker, the 23 year old single mom to baby Faith Hope, who was diagnosed with anencephaly at about 21 weeks gestation. For those of you who don't know what that is, the general summary is that it's a defect in the neural tube early in pregnancy that prevents the cells that form the head from closing up and forming the brain, leaving very little or no brain tissue alongside the brain stem. This essentially leaves the fetus in question with only involuntary reflexes such as breathing, heartbeat, temperature control, etc. while negating the possibility of consciousness and other senses such as hearing, sight, etc. In other words, a living vegetable by medical standards.

As this is understood as an irreversible defect in the medical community (i.e. brain cells can not be recreated or regenerated), doctors generally suggest terminating the pregnancy, or, if carried to term, allowing nature to take their course while offering comfort measures only. Myah chose not to terminate the pregnancy, gave birth to her "daughter" who only just recently passed away after 93 days of "life".

Now, my opinion, being pro choice is that while she made a decision, it makes you wonder if it was the best decision. There's always a mother's unconditional love for her child, yes, but given the circumstances, was it really the best thing? I've read the blog and while it seems that she did love Faith, she was growing to be more in denial as time passed on. She claims that it was thriving, advanced for its age, and breathing and eating on her own without 'tubes' despite the fact that she wasn't bottle fed (i.e. syringe feed then via feeding tube), was on a number of medications like Zantac and Tylenol for acid reflex, stomach ulcers, and breathing issues which ultimately took a toll on that little body. While she might love it that sounds like some really shitty crap to put a body through because you want it to "live".

And if that isn't enough, the greatest proof of denial is part of an entry after the birth in which she says that she believes the doctors didn't know what they were talking about and that her baby might be the exception to this condition. Just sad.

All in all, it's a whole bit of internet drama concerning Myah, her baby (or "zombaby" as some have dubbed it) and the baby's father, Dan Lirette - who in himself is a whole bunch of internet drama but I won't get into that. Myah ultimately started the blog as a way of letting others know about this birth defect and possibly grieving (as she is now), but some had taken it to a whole other level and taken to trolling the girl based on her religious standpoint concerning the decision as she's a Fundamentalist, born again Christian. Th ultimate result (as far as I know) is an article on Encyclopedia Dramatica, which, according to them included several folks e-mailing her on how to rid herself of the 'zombaby'.

Anyway, I digress, as there are two points of discussion I'm looking to tackle here. First, given this situation, what would you do if this was your child, and based on that, do you believe Myah's decision was right or wrong? Would you choose to terminate the pregnancy and cut your losses, or would you deliver it naturally and let nature take its course? Or in this case, would you act as if it were a regular child despite the painfully obvious fact that it's not, will never be?

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I'd abort. I don't think that the child would be able to really live. But it's her choice, and if she can deal with it then great.

Edited by Mollfie
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I really don't see the point in continuing a pregnancy when you know your baby will not live to see it's first birthday, and will live as a vegetable for it's short life. But it was her choice, fine, and I sure hope she doesn't have any complications with her next child if she plans on trying again.

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I hadn't heard of this girl, but from your description Kitty, I wonder if she wanted a doll. I know it's cruel of me to say, since I won't ever know what it's like to be pregnant, but choosing to bring such a disabled baby to full term seems even selfish to me.

I don't know. I hope anyone I'd decide to have a baby with would be wise enough to abort the poor thing.

One of the posts on her front page, when the baby dies, makes me a little angry and a little sad. It's just pretty sad overall.

The best 93 days of my life were spent with my daughter. Faith went to Heaven today. We spent the entire morning and some of the afternoon snuggling together in my warm bed. I told her that I loved her many times. I was holding her in my arms when she passed away. It was around 4:40 in the afternoon. I had just finished changing her diaper and I decided to pick her up and wrap a blanket around her. She made a very sweet smiling face and held it for several seconds... I thought it was very cute. I waited for her to take her next breath, but she didn't. She looked up at me and opened her beautiful eyes, and I realized what was happening. I told her to go with Jesus. I told her that I loved her and that it was ok, that I would meet her in Heaven. I held her close and cried tears on her face. I felt her chest and there was no longer a heartbeat. But she still looked so beautiful. And even now, she is still so amazingly beautiful... as I hold her here she is looking like a porcelain doll. Her tube feed is gone. Her lips are still pink and her facial expression looks so happy and peaceful. God is good.

Strange stuff for me to read, I wonder if her baby was any of the things she imagined it to be.

Edited by Badnikz
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There's a reason why the baby's head is bundled up in every picture - There isn't much "head" behind her eyeballs. I just say a picture of a baby with this condition on Wikipedia without anything on it's head... you could use it as a fake alien autopsy picture.

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She made a very sweet smiling face and held it for several seconds... I thought it was very cute.

And even now, she is still so amazingly beautiful... as I hold her here she is looking like a porcelain doll.

These two sections I find creepy and quite disturbing. She's making the baby out to be an object (which it essentially is), even though she was it's mother...

Anyway, I don't see the pointin giving birth to a vegetable. I'd abort. FALCON PUNCH!!!

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I hadn't heard of this girl, but from your description Kitty, I wonder if she wanted a doll. I know it's cruel of me to say, since I won't ever know what it's like to be pregnant, but choosing to bring such a disabled baby to full term seems even selfish to me.

I don't know. I hope anyone I'd decide to have a baby with would be wise enough to abort the poor thing.

One of the posts on her front page, when the baby dies, makes me a little angry and a little sad. It's just pretty sad overall.

Strange stuff for me to read, I wonder if her baby was any of the things she imagined it to be.

For your perception about it being a doll, I don't fault you on that, since I really wonder that myself. The whole blog is basically plastered with photos of this "baby" adorned in various little outfits and/or conveniently placed bonnets to hide the defect. As for selfish, I'm more or less agreeing with that based on one particular entry in which she said she wasn't interested in donating the baby's organs. I can't remember what entry it was, but I remember it gave off this sarcastic kind of tone as if out of spite for parents who were lucky enough to have healthy children. While I can't blame her for not wanting to donate out of heartache, I kind of frown at it since she might have had the chance to help several other children by donating.

But you know, after reading several early, prenatal entries in her blog, it's my understanding that she was advised by doctors about the gloomy end result and that she was preparing to cope with it.Hell, she even apparently had an aunt or close relative who had a child with the same defect in the past. That is, until she apparently pushed for a c-section so that the baby might have a better chance of not being stillborn. And then, that's where all those lovely photos and rosy entries about being advanced, special and a unique exception to the norm of this defect come into play.

I'm no psychiatrist, but if I passed the link over to my dad who is, I'd bet he'd be thinking the same thing I'm thinking: this woman was coming to terms with it and then just buried herself into denial when her daughter made it longer than expected. The fact that her blog had this overall 'feel good, nothing can go wrong' vibe makes that all the more apparent, especially when you watch some of those home movies. She was basically giving meaning to every little twitch and sneeze while sure that it would continue to thrive - whereas she was having trouble gaining/maintaining weight, breathing, swallowing, etc.

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I'm not necessarily a fan of bumping topics, but in this case, I thought it'd be okay since the internet drama behind this is getting weirder by the second.

Like this for instance:

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

To anyone who has also had to suffer torment from the so-called "something awful" goons (I'm not calling them goons, that is what they call themselves), I have some good news for you. One of the main "goons" that was behind much of the hate campaign and threats against Faith and I (and her father) has been identified. A police report has already been filed by the RCMP and I will be cooperating with the police as necessary to ensure that this woman is held accountable for her actions. She hides behind the alias "Zoso", but her real name is Amy and she lives in Detroit, Michigan. Let this be a lesson to the rest of you "goons." Didn't I tell you that your identities could easily be traced? If you want to continue to terrorize people then you can go to prison, where terrorists belong.

Posted by Myah at 6:49 PM

I think I might have mentioned in passing that some folks were trolling her and that she primarily blames Something Awful for it. Now that the police might be involved concerning the internet activity, what do you guys think? I personally don't think she has much of a case given that much of the information they ran with was put out by her (i.e. blogs, photos, e-mail address) with minimal restriction to it until pushed to remove/take it down.

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