I did it. I admit it. I wrote a piece on false news. A piece on a heart wrenching and frightening experience I had, and I based it all on false news.
Last month I wrote a piece called My C-Section Counts – My Response to the Photographer’s Discrimination. I felt good about this piece and I posted it on my blog as soon as I could.
I based said piece on a post shared on Santimommy, that I found on my newsfeed. The post was about a photographer refusing to take photos of a c-section. As the story goes, the photographer denied the job as she felt that a c-section was a woman’s way of “cutting corners” and therefore “not real birth”. I was outraged! How could someone be insensitive? How can someone think that a c-section isn’t birth? After reading about it on several posts that appeared on different sites, I decided to pen my own C-section story. Writing about it was quite emotional, but I felt good. It felt good to share my story with the motherhood community.
Here I am, feeling great about this post, only to later find out it was fake. It was 100% fabricated. I found out by submitting my blog post to another website for republication. They dropped the bomb on me. What? Fake? How? I couldn’t find any news about it. I reached out to said website and the investigation was on.
The post was found on, of course, Facebook. Viral Memes Debunked spread the news of the fake post. I was sent the link and there it was, in plain site. The false story that had everyone up in arms, telling their stories, and fighting against discrimination. And it was all over a fabricated story.
Now, you can look at this and be bitter and disappointed about the lies. I mean, I was a bit disappointed because I published a piece based on false information. Or, you can look at this and see that it brought a community together. It banded us together. It showed us that we are not alone. We will not be discriminated against.
Birth is birth.
As I see it, all is not lost. Writing my piece was cathartic. I got to express my experience through a different medium and it felt right. I reached others and found out that I wasn’t the only one who had an awful C-section experience. I didn’t feel so alone anymore.
Did I learn a lesson here? I sure did. The next time I want to jump on a bandwagon for something, I best get my facts straight.
