My doctor gave the bare bones of my story and the address of my blog to a reporter, without asking me about it first (!). That reporter visited this blog and wrote to me asking me a bunch of questions, which I did not get around to answering for a few days. I finally wrote to her Saturday night asking her if she still wanted my response.
I woke up the next day to find the bare bones of my story, as well as my bloody blog address (!!!!!), published in a story featured on the first page of the biggest newspaper in India. I log in here and find random people visiting from like everywhere in India. I panic and shut down the blog, and go try to get the reporter to get my address off atleast the mobile version of the story. I succeeded after a few hours, and am going briefly online again to test the waters.
I can't believe this happened----I've always tried to stay as anonymous as possible, and I've lost track of how many reporters I've rebuffed. Let us hope damage control has been sufficient. I want this blog to be found by people who come looking for information on it, or who are part of the the ALI community, and not random gawkers who happened to read about me in the papers.
Worst case scenario: I think I may end up moving. If I do....the regulars...you will know where to find me.
I woke up the next day to find the bare bones of my story, as well as my bloody blog address (!!!!!), published in a story featured on the first page of the biggest newspaper in India. I log in here and find random people visiting from like everywhere in India. I panic and shut down the blog, and go try to get the reporter to get my address off atleast the mobile version of the story. I succeeded after a few hours, and am going briefly online again to test the waters.
I can't believe this happened----I've always tried to stay as anonymous as possible, and I've lost track of how many reporters I've rebuffed. Let us hope damage control has been sufficient. I want this blog to be found by people who come looking for information on it, or who are part of the the ALI community, and not random gawkers who happened to read about me in the papers.
Worst case scenario: I think I may end up moving. If I do....the regulars...you will know where to find me.
Oh man, that would totally freak me out! I share my blog with a few IRL people, but nothing big time like that! I hope you don't have to move...
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness! I don't blame you for freaking out. I will never understand how some people think it's THEIR place to tell YOUR story, especially without your permission! (Also, if you do move, I would love to still follow you! I hope you'll someone be able to get that info to those of those who are "new" regulars.)
ReplyDeleteI have changed my blog address for less. Sucks that happened to you. I'm sorry.
ReplyDeleteWow!! THa'ts crazy. I have followed you for some time and consider myself a "regular" but don't know where to find you if you shut down this blog!!
ReplyDeleteIf I do move, I'll be giving out my blog address through email as well, for anybody who wants it. I really don't want to lose any of my regular readers either, and I'll make sure that does not happen. :)
ReplyDeleteThe real tragedy would be that I would lose some of the information on here...not sure if I can take it all over.
WTF! That's insane? This sounds like such a breach of ethics--journalistic and medical! Though I obviously don't know the specifics of Indian law on any of those things.
ReplyDeleteThat's a relief. I have been following your story for years!
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh! That is awful! If you move to Wordpress, you can transfer all posts. You could also make this blog private and only have your regulars as "members" who can read and comment. I've done both at different times.
ReplyDeleteOK, I just found your blog and I am so sorry about the crazy violation of privacy and all the headache that ensued! I hope you do get it sorted out quickly.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to email you privately but couldn’t find an address (sorry if I missed it somewhere!), but I love your blog name, your story, and everything about this, so I am just commenting here - because I very much respect your blog, your writing, and your goal, I will only say that I am about to launch a project, a book about dealing with infertility and specifically about dealing with the ... sometimes less than helpful things that people say along the journey. I would LOVE to have your feedback and support. If you are interested, please shoot me an email (whattorespect at gmail dot com).
Thank you so much for sharing your journey and being a support to so many!
Longtime lurker but have enjoyed your blog. I'm a physician in the States and am so confused as to how a physician could think this is ok--we are bound by privacy and anonymity for patients. If a patient asks me if I see their neighbor or mother or mailman, I can't say that I do,--I can't imagine revealing the name or contact information of a patient, and to a journalist. Not sure if you have an ethics board where you are but I think someone should know about this breach. I'm sorry this happened to you. And I'd like to keep following if you go private. Erin
ReplyDeleteyes, if you move, take us with you.
ReplyDeleteThis is a crazy scenario, woman. Good on you for fighting to get the url off the online version of the article. As always, you rock.
What a pain! In other news, I assume the fact that you are posting about this means the pregnancy continues to go well. I hope that the flurry calms down and you can focus back on using this space to share, educate, request support, etc.
ReplyDeleteGood luck,
Tara
I asked another indian physician whether she would give a patient's blog address to a reporter, and she said "not without asking the patient about it first!"
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, my RE takes a rather unique approach to things.
Gosh, it is just such an invasion of your privacy. Horrible.
ReplyDeleteWow! I just found your blog a few months ago ( am at week 14 of an IVF pregnancy after 3 years of infertility so feel particularly in synch with your blog). I'm visiting India from NY and just read the story on the front page and thought wow, there's two people who are doing this - cool! I have not been a regular for long, but hope I can find you!
ReplyDeleteOh no! How frustrating! I've been wondering how things were going.
ReplyDeleteThat is insane! I'm Indian too (I live in the US) and considering further treatment in India if things don't work out for me here since we're fast running out of funds. This is beyond crazy though... your RE sure needs a lesson on ethics and fast!! Wishing you luck!
ReplyDeleteI have been following your blog for over a year now and thoroughly enjoy every post! What happened is truly awful but I hope readers like us don't get penalized for the reporters unscrupulous behavior. As such there are only a handful of Indian IF bloggers out there so if you chose to go private its going to be a big loss.
ReplyDeleteBtw....i just noticed your page views...you were happy on reaching 100k...ur now over 300k babes....kaching! :) Hope alls well with ur baby and J...
ReplyDeleteOh my!! That's crazy!! Don't forget me if you move!!
ReplyDelete