A mum has hit back at sick internet trolls who have told her to put her disabled son “out of his misery”.
TikTok user Amber told of the sickening abuse she gets about her baby son Derek who has holoprosencephaly.
The condition is an abnormality in brain development where the brain doesn’t divide into left and right hemispheres. It can also affect the development of the face.
Proud mum Amber shared a video of her little boy waking up from a nap and in the clip she can be heard saying to the tot: “Hi Derek, are you waking up now?”
But the young mum was disgusted and devastated to receive a barrage of vile comments from Tik Tok users, the MIrror reports.
One TikTok user wrote: “I’m eating right now,” while another said: “I’m sorry but that scared me.”
But the nasty comments were just some of the barrage of abuse the young mum received for sharing the video.
One TikTok user said: “You wouldn’t put an animal through this so why a tiny helpless baby. Must have shown on scans.”
While others didn’t even refer to Derek as ‘he’ – instead calling him ‘it’.
After receiving the vile comments, Amber posted more videos explaining Derek’s condition and hitting back at the trolls.
In the footage, the mum explained there some signs during her pregnancy that something might not be right with her baby, but she didn’t have the full picture until she was eight months pregnant.
She and her partner did consider an abortion, but they decided to go ahead with the pregnancy – although doctors suggested Derek might not even live past birth.
However the brave tot proved medics wrong and proved his strength and determination.e
Amber said: “We were ready to let him go. We were ready to say goodbye and if it’s selfish to want to meet him before that, then yeah we’re selfish parents.
“But I’m so glad that we did because he lived. He wasn’t dying. He wasn’t suffering. He was fighting to stay alive.”
Amber says she understand of people want to ask questions about Derek’s condition but slammed those who post nasty comments about his appearance.
“There’s no reason to just straight up say, ‘put him out of his misery’, or ‘put IT out of IT’s misery’, or ‘put it down’. There’s no reason for that,” she said.
She scolded people who made assumptions before hearing her story – including nasty people who assumed she had “had sex with [her] cousin”.
Amber added she shares videos of Derek online to show people babies like him can live happily and without suffering.