This is really hard for me to talk about, i get heart palpitations just thinking about it but I have to deal with this as I received a letter today saying if i didn't call the immunisation register the CCB would be cancelled for ds2 (4 & 1/2 years old). So I hope you can answer some of my questions and guide me in the right direction, because i'm finding the information out there too overwhelming. I just keep putting it off.

So long story short here... i've never been 'sold' on the vax concept, but didn't feel confident enough not to vax ds1. At the time, the said risks of not vaccinating swayed me to vaccinate.

So ds1 is 6 and is fully vaxed except for varicella.

DS2 was vaccinated to 12 months, so had everything they give at 12 months. This is where its upsetting... his speech had began to develop "normally" but stopped and regressed after the vaccination. He developed some behavioural 'issues' and everything was challenging. He didn't seem 'right' and i felt like something was wrong. I researched and obviously came across info linking ASD's to vaccinations, i panicked. Behaviour and lack of development lead to testing, and he was delayed in some areas but ahead in others. Speech was severely delayed, went through therapy. An ASD was ruled out, finally. Only in the past 9 months has he 'caught' up speech wise and been given the all clear developmentally. These past few years have been so dark for us though... I was told by so many drs, paed, specialists that the vaccination had nothing to do with his issues, in fact many scoffed and made me feel stupid for suggesting it, mocked me for believing what i read on the internet... rather i was just a mother desperately trying to find an answer... why had my son gone from babbling and attemting words to - complete and utter silence? NO one had an answer. I spent my days wrangling violent tempers and doing speech work with him whilst treading the water of my own deep depression. I am so thankful we are now both out of the woods, so to speak. He is well, he is happy, He has been 'labelled' developmentally 'normal'. I have recovered too but i'm left with this agonising decision as to how to proceed with the 4 year old vaccinations.

I want to keep my head in the sand, and delay, but on the other hand i just want to make a decision... it we're not going to continue vaccinating then i need to decide that. I'm just strugging with the decision.

Okay, so the developmental challenges of my son could have had nothing to do with the fact he was vaccinated... but then i just didn't have a good feeling about it. Whereas with my first son, i wasn't happy about vaccinating him but i certainly didn't feel like something wasn't right about it. Yet he didn't have any developmental issues, so who knows.

So the things that do make me want to continue vaccinating are the illnesses themselves, the fear of him dying. Where can i find non biased info about the risks and benefits of each individual vaccine? As in how many children are likely to contract it in the western world etc, then how many of those go on to have a lifelong issue versus a complication from the vaccine itself?

And as for the 4 year old vax - did anyone do all the ones previous but stop at the 4 year old one? IF so why? (technically we stopped at 18 months as he hasn't had chicken pox vax.)

If he managed to survive the 12 months vax, despite those developmental issues, is there any reason for me to logistically worry about the MMR since he already had it the first time? or is my worry valid given my experience?

With the tetanus, can you give that separately? Does anyone recommend this? I think this one is important because i've had it myself several times in childhood and adulthood (cut from a rusty fence and card accidents). Would like info on this one.

Ultimately i just want to do what has the lowest risk of harm, i used to think that was vaccinating but now i'm not so sure....

I hope this makes sense and don't mean to offend either way.