I’ve been battered and torn down. I will never do that to you. I will not allow myself to be abused ever again. When I was little, I had to live with it. But not now. Now, I check out.
If you’re so busy that you can’t send a one line response to tell me your health has improved (or not) or to tell me things are hectic, I will stop bothering you. If I’m not worth your limited time, if you can tell me two weeks later that you were too busy, then you can live without me for two months, or years. Hey, that way you maximize every precious second. Especially if you’re the one who asked how I am and then disappear only to reappear weeks later because you were too busy. That means you didn’t really mean the question, otherwise you’d care about the response.🤔
If you can forget we were meant to hang out, more than once, then forget I exist. That’s not a true loving relationship and that’s what I deserve. Just like you deserve. (Unless you’re an evil woman who told an abandoned child that they aren’t part of the family. Then you don’t deserve any love.)
I try very hard to build. To build people’s confidence. To be kind. Caring. Gentle. I know how we all have burdens and problems. (Except for the one friend who said God obviously thinks she’s weak because her life is easy.) I want to try lift yours, not add to it. And so, I will try to be what I want you to be to me.
And sometimes, it’s out of self-preservation, despite how angry I might sound above. (As I type this, I think of a friend who is also like this. Too busy till weeks later. I love her so much. But the checking in but not reading my response is hard. What I write is not even true sometimes by the time she replies. Whatever child might have needed the doctor might be ok. Whatever happened to my parents has become worse, or is not even on my mind anymore. To be told, “Sorey. I had a,b,c to do” doesn’t cut it. I too have a lot to do. And she knows it. She’s one of those who always comments on how hard my life is compared to hers as she “only” has to be present for two children. Children whose education she’s not overseeing and who don’t have challenges. If I can carve out a minute or two a week, why can’t she? One minute or two out of 7 days. That’s all I ask. Thirty seconds to ask how I am, or how a psych assessed went, 30 seconds to read my response and maybe another 50 seconds within the next 24 hours to respond to MY response. THEN forget about me till a more convenient time. That’s all I ask. Don’t ask me a caring question then check the response a week or more later. There’s almost no point in my responding.)
Ok. Back to my point. I have seen how cruel humans can be. How unkind family can be. I want to be your soft place to land, but be mine too. Let’s lift each other up.
There’s a young mom who is going through extreme postpartum depression. And her husband hasn’t exactly been helpful all the time. I went through it and know exactly what she’s feeling. In fact, much of what she’s feeling is exactly what I felt.
I was committed to being a homeschool mom, but those two babies (My first two) were so hard on me that I fantasized admit putting them in a crèche I used to walk past when trying to stop them crying. Those babies could cry! My son was so bad that a man who wasn’t even living in our house asked if he was sick. With our daughter, we lived in a two storey flat. (Apartment) We were living downstairs and our upstairs neighbors would comment on how nad they felt for us without daughter’s crying. Imagine the guilt I felt knowing she was keeping others awake!
Church people tried to invite us over for lunch after church, especially when my husband was out of town, and quickly, my baby boy was known as the one who cries a lot. In vain, people took him from my arms but nope, only a few times did he calm down.
My husband used to travel a lot, and for a long time. Once, gone for six weeks. It was hectic. BUT I had some support. I would spend one night a month with some female friends who shared a flat and were still single. I could relax for one day a month and I will never forget how it felt to feel normal for once.
There was also a church lady who was a bit older than we were who phoned me almost every afternoon. Those phone calls reminded me that I mattered.
The desperation and fatigue I felt can’t be described. I felt like such a useless mom. I even asked God why He’d given me a baby if He knew I was going to be a pathetic mom. We’d gone through fertility treatment and throughout, my plea had been to God, “Ok. If you don’t want me to fall pregnant, tell me! Then I’ll only adopt and forget about feeling those kicks in my belly! Now I’m trying and praying and hoping and I don’t know how long You want me to keep going for. Some had to wait fifteen years. Just tell me so I know! I want it, but if it’s not Your will then say so so I stop wishing and crying…”
We stopped fertility treatment. (Did I mention we weren’t in our own country at this point?) Then one day, still in that country in the east of the continent, we visited a friend we used to sing with in our university days. He was married and had a baby boy at this point. As little children did the Sabbath school, the tears just started. I didn’t know if I’d ever hear the sweet voices of little children singing in my home. We didn’t know how long we’d be in that country, and we didn’t know if foreigners could adopt. I stumbled out the church, my heart breaking.
The wife followed me out, asking what was wrong. When I told her our fertility woes, she understood. It had ‘only’ taken them nine months to conceive, but those nine months had been torture for her. For her to know we’d been waiting for over a year was unimaginable. So she took me to a herbalist aunt in law of hers who had given her some herbs to help.
Just a month later, we were expecting. After all those failed meds, one month of herbs had done it. God had allowed us to fall pregnant!
So for Him to then ‘betray’ me by making it difficult to be a mother was a slap in the face.🤣Hey, I’m just reporting what I felt! This young mom I am talking about who is currently depressed was saying to me how she almost regrets having begged for a baby. They truly were desperate to conceive. And had suffered a loss at quite a later stage before it took over a year to conceive again. She truly has begged for a baby. Little knowing how challenging it would be…
Unlike her, I had those friends to host me once a month. I had that older church lady to check on me. I guess it’s my turn to be the older lady and check on HER.
So my plea is, if you’re helping a young mom, don’t stop. If you’re checking on her and she sounds like she’s struggling, keep checking. That mom needs you more than she might admit. (I never told the church lady how desperate I was.) You might be her only ray of light. Keep shining!
I think I’m depressed. No normal person would call a gastroenterologist, be told they can’t make an appointment now, they should try at the end of April as no new patients are being booked, then cry.
That is seriously nothing to cry about. On the other hand, they did answer the phone in Afrikaans and I’ve had bad experiences with practices where it’s so obvious that they cater to White Afrikaners (or Coloureds.)
For the sake of overseas people who don’t know our history. You have the White folk who referred to themselves as Europeans. Which they were, given they’d come and invaded us from Europe-be they the Dutch who became the Afrikaners, or the English. Then you have Indians. (Many came as indentured labour from India.) And you have Coloureds who also tend to speak Afrikaans more than English. Some are a direct mix of White and Black, but most are mixed Malay slaves, Indian, Khoi-San. Like the photo below. These were deemed as superior to us Black Africans. They had better schools, were out in better neighbourhoods and were allowed to have more education than us Black folk, who were only meant to work as gardeners and domestic servants.
Image from Quora
Sadly, though they weren’t treated as well as White folk so did also suffer, too many believed the White lie that they were superior to Black people. I’ve had racial abuse from Indians, Coloureds and Whites. And the last surgeon I went to was like this person who answered the Gastroenterologist’s call -Afrikaner. And do racist that a White friend of mine wanted to go yell at them.
I’ve been warned. I will NOT be phoning them back. Also, most doctors here in my part of the country are NOT Black. And most specialists are Afrikaner. Most Black professionals and doctors move to Johannesburg where we are the majority and don’t get as abused as here in my province. Even my daughter once asked why none of the therapists she’s seen look like her. My province isn’t kind to people like me.
Anyway! The fact that they answered in Afrikaans when most of us speak English when answering the phone so we cater to every person, says a lot. Tears are gone. I don’t know why it felt like such a punch in the gut.
And for reference, this is what Black people in my country might look like. (Minus the White, Indian and olive skinned guys in the back.🙂)
Why was I calling the gastroenterologist anyway? I don’t know how to proceed. My most recent colonoscopy and gastroscopy was in 2021 and I was told I had chronic gastritis. That doctor has gone to the UK. I wanted to find out what the current medication I’m on has done to me. I wanted to know if my lining is ok or still suffering. Last time, I felt no pain at all, only for them to find extensive damage in my stomach lining. So, what if I’m relaxed now and I’m still in a bad state? What does chronic mean? Is my lining always inflamed and damaged? Or does it flare up and then go into remission? And how often should I be tested? Especially as it can lead to a higher risk of cancer, and Ankylosing spondylitis itself also leads to a higher chance of colon cancer. That’s the question I had. How often should I be tested? (He was Afrikaner but they answered in both languages and he was very kind! He even charged only what my medical aid would pay even though his fees are higher.)
I wish I had a gastroenterologist friend to ask so I’d save the consultation fee!
Two years ago, I took my now eight and seven year old to an educational psychologist. I knew they both had ADHD. I knew they both had terrible memory problems. But I’m not able to go get medication until a professional tells me I’m right. So off I went.
I had other concerns too. We have always known my seven year old has global developmental delay on top of autism and SPD. But there was something else my girl was struggling with too.
The psychologist brushed my concerns off. “She’s fine! She will become a lawyer, you’ll see! Her negotiation skills are amazing and she has no other problems. Just get her on Ritalin and she will be fine. There’s nothing else you need to worry about.” Though she did send us for behavioral optometry assessment to be sure, as her tracking was not great. (Neither was my son’s.)
I wasn’t convinced.
Here we are, two years later. I have educated my older children. I know what ‘normal’ should be. I know my older two aren’t geniuses. So by age eight, my girl should be able to count to thirty, shouldn’t she? And she should be able to recite basic sums, shouldn’t she?
But she can’t. She knows 1+1 but no matter how I teach the other basics, she can’t memorise them. Granted, ADHDers do have poor memory skills anyway so there is a lot she can’t memorise, but it’s concerning. She has to work out ‘plus one’ despite the various and different ways different curricula have explained it, despite the videos I’ve used, besides the different ways I’ve explained it. All the above sums, she has to do on her fingers. That, plus her inability to count to 30 shows me that perhaps there’s a dyscalculia issue. Yes, she understands more vs less, but this and subtraction are too difficult for her.
Then there’s the writing. And this is after two years of tracing bunvers and seeing numbers. And the above was immediately after tracing and copying numbers AND my having the sheet with the numbers where she could see them and copy them correctly. Could it be dyslexia? She struggles with writing letters too.
I began assessment for both children with a different educational psychologist early this month. While discussing each child’s birth mother and prenatal history, she kept saying, “Things could be so much worse! Wow, they’ve survived a lot!” Not helpful. The damaged clothing, the way I have to be hyper vigilant because their version of fun is destructive or disturbing (Shouting at passersby over the wall), the extreme messiness, the inability to follow instructions, the homeschooling struggle… It’s too much for me. Knowing it could be worse when it could be better is not helpful. It doesn’t change my daily struggle.
Now, the average salary in my country is apparently R24 000. Assessment -which consists of a meeting with me first, emotional assessment, academic assessment, reports etc-will cost around R12 000. (R1110 per hour.) That is a LOT. Just for TESTING. Only AFTER my first meeting with her did she tell me that she is having surgery so we will begin “at the end of April/May.” Not sure when that is and she hasn’t given me a date yet. Not that I’m in a hurry given I have to pay for my MRI and our monthly medication anyway. But it would have been nice to know there would be a delay BEFORE she saw me so I could see someone else and get the ball rolling.
Oh well. We shall wait. In the meantime, I’m taking Maths very slowly. Pointless forcing her to go faster than she can. I wish we had schools that allowed you to forego Maths completely. I wish we had special schools that had small classes and provided therapy. We do, but they are private and beyond our means. In the meantime, I’ll use manipulatives to ‘do’ the sums. I’m honestly not coping. With their challenges come behavioural issues that just don’t work for a mom who’s spending her days faking not being in pain and fighting extreme fatigue while dealing with daily cleaning and ironing. Do you know how much work six children create? I can’t even go to the toilet without my one three year old banging on the door screaming and crying. My seven and eight year olds also come shouting “Knock, knock” when I’m in the toilet. Add to that that I have hit early menopause at the ripe old age of 42 and my HRT has caused prolonged and heavy bleeding, my loo visits are not fun anyway.
I am at breaking point. Each cry and shout from my seven year old autistic boy who is suspected to have FASD sends my blood pressure through the roof. (Can you believe the pediatrician wanted to discount the FASD “because he’s not aggressive?” And this is while he’s on anti-psychotic anyway. And I’m VERY sure not all FASD children are aggressive anyway.) Not doing school is not an option. If I don’t come up with something for them to do every minute of the day, they complain of being bored. They break things. They eat paint. They tear their clothes. They cut their hair…
I myself might end up with a dys something or the other soon! This is homeschooling life on another level. A level too high for me. Educating my teenagers didn’t prepare me for this. And they aren’t a walk in the park themselves with their current exam lack of concern. I wish there were three of me. I dread each day, and that is not how motherhood should be. Maybe if I was well I’d be able to bear it better.
Our country’s Axial Spondyloarthritis Association sends out info about their global meetings. Through that, I found the British NASS. Ankylosing Spondylitis (Heresfter referred to as AS in my blog) is one of the types of Spondyloarthritis… They say that diagnosis takes around eight years and is around two years longer when it comes to diagnosing women. In fact, they used to think it’s a men’s disease. One woman was even told this year that she can’t have AS BECAUSE she’s a woman!
What is AS? My understanding is that it’s an autoimmune, inflammatory arthritis that is progressive, incurable and leads to the infamous hunchbacks you see due to the finding of the spine. Some people fuse straight as a ramrod. Once your bones are fused, you’re stuck in that position for life. So you can have people who are stuck looking down for life. It has many comorbidities and can shorten your life depending on which organ it attaches and how it attacks it. It’s scary. In White patients, the HLA-B27 gene is expected, but Black patients usually don’t test positive for this gene. I didn’t. It tends to run in families. It might be in mine.
Why “my understanding?“ Because my rheumatologist didn’t tell me anything about it!
So, as a teenager, I was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. I was never sent to a rheumatologist. And all the GP did was to give me Voltaren gel to put on my aching, swollen joints. For many years thereafter, I knew that winter came with terrible pain and inability to use my hands. I I wouldn’t be able to hood a mug, couldn’t bend my fingers to iron and the pain was horrendous. Winter was bad.
I was active. Jogging, exercising for an hour each day, walking to campus, walking a LOT and far, for exercise. By my early twenties, what I now see as signs of AS started up. I had a warehouse job and walking caused a lot of pain in my feet and lower back. None of the other employees complained as bitterly. I changed job but even in the next job, my back was painful. I thought maybe the nursing home residents were too heavy for me. So I found yet another job.
In 2011, I was sitting on a stationary bike when the most awful pain hit my sacrum. That’s when I started seeking help. But none was to be found. An MRI in 2015 didn’t show much. An X-ray said I had disc height loss in my lower spine but they said that wouldn’t cause the amount of pain I’m in. Nobody sent me to a rheumatologist. I was told to see a biokineticist, a physiotherapist.. None of them helped. They said it was due to low core muscle tone but I knew it wasn’t that.
A chiropractor said it was because I carried my child on my hip. (Soho come others weren’t in such pain??) I’d stand for a while and then have to run to my room to cry from the pain. Along the way, a doctor guessed that I had SI joint pain as my hip also became excruciatingly painful.
I gave up.
But the pain didn’t. It got worse over time. My joints stopped swelling as much but my lower back started to scream. By last year December, I couldn’t take it any longer. Is reached the stage where I was being God to kill me every night. Sometimes I’d try walk and my leg would buckle. I started limping and having to shorten the evening walks with my husband. High impact exercise caused a lot of pain at first, and then all exercise once I stopped high impact, would mean the rest of the day would see an increase in pain earlier in the day.
I couldn’t cook without having to take a break to lie down. I couldn’t clean. I was in agony.
I went to a pain clinic where a GP sent me for a bone scan. I have arthritis and degeneration in my pelvis, shoulders, neck, elbow, knees, right foot. Oh yes, from my early 20’s I used to beg my husband to rub my heel. The GP said I needed facet block try injections and radio frequency ablation to get rid of the pain in my joints. But this didn’t address the enthesitis the scan also found. (Inflation where ligament or tendon meets the bone.) That, plus other reasons saw me canceling the attempts at pain relief
I saw a GP who agreed with me that I needed to see a rheumatologist. But the one with great reviews, a Dr Brijlal even this year can’t tell me when she will be available. Another was only available this month, and I was desperate in December! So I took an appointment with one who was available in January. (Seems to me that the ones who have space early aren’t great. Just my own opinion and based on reviews.)
He sent me for an MRI of my sacrum after marveling that I was about to smile given the results of my bone scan. In his words, I was “full of arthritis.”
The scan showed Ankylosing spondylitis, especially in my right side. The one that frequently became so painful and locked that I couldn’t step on my right leg without lurching about and making my husband offer to carry me.
He gave me a prescription. I asked what the needs on it were. He said, “It’s painkillers. Don’t worry, I know you have chronic gastritis so it’s not anti inflammatories.” That’s all he said. No instructions, no telling me what each medication was. The pharmacist was appalled!
He’s sent me for Omeprazole (a PPI) to protect my chronically inflamed lining from the Prednisone he’d put me on. And sulfasalazine. One of the meds you start with when treating AS (and a few other arthritis, according to the insert.) This doctor didn’t tell me how many months I’d take the medication, didn’t tell me why, didn’t tell me anything. He also injected me with steroid and anti inflammatory.
That, plus my discomfort at having to disrobe and be so closely inspected have made me seek for a female rheumatologist. Another great one set up an appointment for me for NEXT YEAR MAY!! 😭Too far. So I’ve found another who will see me in the meantime in May, which is when my next appointment with the rheumatologist was to be.
I’m nervous. Some doctors have shown a very racist bent and she’s old. (As are most of them. Not next year’s one though!) But very few of us Black people have AS and the one in my SA group who does is in a different province, so I couldn’t ask her for a suggestion. This lady was recommended by one other patient. White patient.
The pain has increased dramatically. (I suppose the effects of the infection have worn off. I saw the rheumatologist early in February) It’s as if I’m not on any treatment BUT I still am not waking up begging to die in the night, so I guess the Sulfasalazine is going something-four tablets a day. The prednisone is more dangerous so I only took it for a short time. It’s for when flares are super bad.
And that is MY delay to diagnosis. I sought help in 2011 and only got a diagnosis in 2023. Many are on chemo meds. But those are expensive and most health insurance companies don’t pay for the needs unless you’re paying a lot each month. A lot lot. We’re paying a lot but not the highest amount so I’m not sure what to hope for. They can work much better but if I can’t afford it, what’s the point in hoping doctors move me onto them?
In the meantime, I wake up in the night in pain. And I spend the day in pain. Diagnosis hasn’t helped much. But it’s a start.
As for my children? My teen daughter started with the “sausage digits” maybe two years ago. Even just barely touching things would cause intense pain for her. It hasn’t progressed to other joints like it did with me. And my son has a hunched over back at his upper spine. He too gets swollen fingers in winter like his sister and I. Yesterday morning was cool and he woke with stiffness.
Our finances aren’t great but I do plan to ask the rheumatologist if they should see her. Just getting MRIs for them would take away all the medical finances we have for the year and I don’t know what bloods and scans she will send me for. Nor do I know that we’d do anything yet regarding treatment. In the meantime, we will do what the Romans do when they start to swell-NSAIDS. (Which is what the GO suggested for my daughter anyway. That plus keeping warm when winter comes.) Thankfully, they don’t have stomach problems so the anti inflammatories should be safe for them if they eat first.
For so many, it’s the norm, but it’s not the norm for me, so I’ll celebrate it.
Like so many of my chronically unwell mom friends, the biggest heartache is not being able to do what we’d like to do with our children. I used to hide in my bedroom to go cry from the extreme pain, and I thought I hid it well. Friends who have spent time with me know that I fake it as much as I can. But the day my first daughter told me when she was four years old, “No mommy, don’t put me on your back. It will get sore” was a hard day for me. I was disappointed that I couldn’t have that fun moment with her, but I had to acknowledge that she was right. It would definitely have caused even more pain.
And this began the self flagellation. “I wish I was better so I could be a better mom.”
Except, when I compare myself now to the mom I had as a child, I’m doing great. And more importantly, my children think so. The teenagers who tell me I’m a perfect mom, and the eight year old who tells me that she can tell I love her, so I don’t need to tell her are proof.
I may not be perfect, but I’m not as bad as I think I am. I have never raised my hand in anger. I have never yelled at my children. Unlike my mother, I have never thrown a condiment at them and made them lose their breath as the air rushed out of their lungs. Unlike my mom, I have not said a negative word about their appearance. They have not heard what I used to hear, “You look like a boy… Your forehead is too big. Your lips look like those of a drunk, you’re embarrassing. Your pimples are irritating me…” I knew full well it was hormonal, but she kept taking me to doctor after doctor, even talking about my bad skin to women in the shops at those beauty counters. They looked at me with pity, “Mama, she’s not that bad. And it’s her age. It will pass…” Talk about making me feel awful.
I have not said any such things to my children. They know they are loved for who they are. They know I want the best for them. They know that every form of discipline is so that they become good people who serve others and bring God joy. I’ve even told them that if I ever lead them astray, to ignore me and obey God.
On the other hand, my mother hates that I’m modest in dress. She hates that I homeschool my children. She hates that we adopted. Every good, every positive I’ve done as an adult, has given her more fuel to hurt me like she did when I was a child.
So, when my children hug me and tell me I’m the best mom ever. When I keep did ing random letters written by my eight year old, “Dear mom, I luv u. U are the best,” my heart melts. I don’t need to run around the house with them, that is a bonus. I don’t need to jump on the trampoline with them. I don’t need to go beyond to prove my love. They already know it.
And I will celebrate that.
It’s not how I grew up and I don’t ever want my children to bear the scars I do.
I know no other life. My first childhood memory is of pain after an operation. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease when I was seven years old and with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis when I was 16 years old. Also, I’ve had chronic iron deficiency anemia ever since I could remember, and asthma also plagued my life as a child and now as an adult. (I have iron infusions every now and then.)
Later, irritable bowel syndrome was added to the list. A diagnosis that took years. And even after being diagnosed, the ‘treatment’ recommended to me was the worst. Eat more wheat. Meanwhile, gluten is actually my biggest enemy. I even ended up in a British ER because of the abdominal pain. (My IBS is the constipation type and I was too busy being young and awesome to realise I was constipated till I had exploratory laparoscopic surgery and the surgeon told me, “You’re full of s—t” with a big smile. (At first I thought he was telling me I was malingering till he added, “Literally. You have spastic colon.”
Fast forward and pass some other operations, and I am then diagnosed with chronic gastritis in 2021. See a pattern here? How could I NOT call this blog ‘chronically something or the other?’
And now here we are. Ankylosing spondylitis. Something I’d never heard of till it shouted loudly in my ear, “I’M HERE!”
Someone complained that they hadn’t slept well that particular week and I wanted to snort. I haven’t slept well in decades! Arthritis and IBS are painful! Add inflammation of my stomach lining and you have someone who doesn’t know what it’s like to sleep well for a month straight.
So, that’s who I am. A chronically suffering mother and friend. And chronically Christian too. I love Him with all my heart and not a day goes by when I don’t have a chat with Him on top of my usual prayers. I’m the crazy one who used to have conversations with her angel while walking to campus as a student. I believe in God and I believe in the existence of good and bad angels.
I’ll never forget hearing those words. Sent in a voice note to a younger female in law, they were full of venom and evil intent. I knew in that moment that the vile person who said this stupid sentence would never accept MY ‘not biological’ children. I knew she hadn’t exactly welcomed them- after all, she’d said the name we chose was that of the child of a pedophile. “Umm, ok..? Why would your mind even go there?”
Also, if she’s “not a biological child” then what is she? What kind of a child is she? Sperm and egg fertilization are biological processes. Yeah, dummies say dumb things.
I wanted to adopt from childhood. Then met a man who ONLY wanted to adopt. I truly felt it was a match made in heaven! (Once we got past my asking what kind of a Black man doesn’t want children with his seed?🤣) M y wanting to experience pregnancy was purely that. A desire to experience pregnancy. I could have willingly given birth to an adopted child. I didn’t want a bio child and an adoptee, I wanted to be pregnant, and to become a mother.
The first thing my own mother said when we took our first adoptee to meet them for the first time was, “Where is her home? Where is her mother?” I should have known. But I thought she was just fumbling with wording. I knew what she meant, but I responded, “Her home is with us. I am her mom!” Duh!
The pedophile, “You’re not a biological child” person told me we shouldn’t have adopted, as now I’d not go into the workforce. I told her I had yet many more years educating my other children in our homeschool so paid employment wasn’t on the radar anyway.
Then she wonders why my husband didn’t tell her about our second adoption, complaining that she found out through social media like everyone else.
I read a book by an adoptee recently. Sadly, her maternal (adoptive) grandmother made it very clear to her that only her biological grandchildren mattered. And her mother in law who knew she was adopted, told her and her husband not to adopt but to have biological children first. OUCH!
The last few words in that chapter were something like this, “Not biological. Second place.” And that is something I never want my children to feel if I can help it. I have shut out both my mother and the voice note relative. My innocent children come first.
A friend of mine is single and in her 30s and has made it clear to suitors that she will adopt.
They’ve all refused to love a child coming to their family in that manner.
So, single she remains. My heroine!
I don’t know what this obsession is with blood. Or really, sperm and egg. Why people can’t love all children.
At church once as we led a discussion on adoption, a young man sincerely asked my husband, “But how do you do it? How do you love a child that’s not yours?”
His answer was, “Because they are all GOD’s children. Whether they came from my loins or another man’s, none of them are MINE. They’ve been lent to us by God to raise for Him. So, if I can love God’s child from my loins, I can love God’s child from anywhere.”
Side note. The possessive nature too many adoptive parents have is also weird. They go to extremes as if the child is an object. They express dislike towards the birth parents. Even some guy who wrote a self congratulatory book about his adopting children stated that he felt (for a time) that updating the child’s birth mom made him feel like he was reporting to the real parent and he was just a guardian. He felt as if she was judging him and that he shouldn’t have had to tell anyone how HIS child was doing.
I don’t get that. If I love my child, I want them to be loved by everyone! The more, the merrier. I want the birth parents to love the child so much that they will put self aside for our child’s sake. I want them to fall in love with this little human and be willing to sacrifice for them. I WANT them to watch our children grow. It doesn’t feel like I’m reporting to a higher authority, it has always felt like I’m sharing something special and sacred with someone who will also feel the same sense of sacredness. With someone who is hurting and needs the pain to be reduced. Not someone who is in competition with me, like this dad felt.
I need my children’s birth parents to stick around. To be engaged. I want them to stay engaged so that if my children ever have questions I can’t answer that only they can, my children get the answers. The closer, the easier it is for that to happen.
Sadly, the one birth mom who was close and engaged has disappeared. Well, her other daughter who she is living with now has my number should anything bad happen to her. But she has disengaged. The other one- we never did find her.
I wish I could share my children with these women.
Back to the point. I am very ‘judgmental’ when it comes to this. If you can’t love a child sincerely just because of whose belly they came from, I can’t respect you. I just can’t. If you will rant at someone who was abandoned by their mother and tell them they are “not part of the family,” that they “are not a biological child,” I will wish upon you every bit of judgment that God can heap on you. You’ve crossed a line. And I will only allow you back in my life when you change that evil heart and allow love and light into it.
I extend my deepest ‘sympathies’ to every adoptee or step child who has ever been made to feel second rate. You are enough. I just wish those who AREN’T enough didn’t spew their poison over and into you.
I saw the GP this week for a new asthma pump. I mentioned that I’m on HRT for my stupidly early (peri) menopause. “What!?? Where are your hormones!?” he exclaimed.
Yeah, I feel like that too, man!
How did I know even before going to the gynae? Hot flashes that left me drenched in sweat-day and night. So bad that my children would ask me why I’m sweating all of a sudden. Lack of libido. A period that had disappeared since October last year. Terribly brain fog and poor memory. The tests were just a confirmation.
My poor children. Their mother is 42 and apparently looks 22 but her body is acting like it’s 52! And on bad days like today, 82! The pain is not under control and I hope the new rheumatologist has a better but not bank-robbing plan. From what I’ve seen, you have to be swimming in money to afford Ankylosing spondylitis treatment, and I’m not. We already had my poor husband wondering where he’d apply for a loan for my meds.
When I was a teenager, my knees, fingers, toes and feet started being extremely sore and swollen. I wouldn’t be able to hold my pens at school and my friend said I was walking “like a granny.” I was told-after numerous tests-that I had Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. For years, I accepted that. All they did was give me an anti inflammatory gel to rub on my joints. I was resigned to the pain and stiffness. I wasn’t able to curl my hands to hold a cup, the iron… I couldn’t bend my fingers to write.
But for the past two years, that has not happened in the same way, or to the same extent as it used to.
On the other hand, my lower back pain increased dramatically. It was in my early 20’s that I noticed that I wasn’t as ‘well’ as others my age and younger. I worked in a warehouse and my feet, legs and sacral area were sore while others were still strong. I quit that job and found a caregiving job. That too strained my back but I didn’t pay much attention to it till 2011.
I remember the day vividly. I was sitting on a stationary bike and this awful pain shot through what I thought was my coccyx. And it didn’t let up. I’ve had X-rays, MRIs and all I’ve been told is that it’s mechanical, it’s because my hips aren’t swaying enough when I’m walking, and because I put my daughter on my hip. I’ve seen doctors, chiropractors and physiotherapists. No can do. I stopped looking for answers.
Till last year. I was waking up in excruciating pain, begging God to kill me. And so, one last time, I tried to figure out why I was in so much pain. I went to a pain clinic and the GP there sent me for a bone scan. And there it was. Multiple sites of arthritis. She told me I had osteoarthritis, “ordinary wear and tear” and suggested I get facet block injections into my spine and SI joint. After that, a rhizotomy. (Basically killing the nerve so doesn’t feel pain.)
But there was also enthesopathy (inflammation where the ligaments or tendons join my bone) in my lower limbs. What about that? And if the pain and cause were “ordinary,” how come none of my fellow 42 year olds had struggled with intense pain?
I ended up seeing a different doctor. After all, the treatments weren’t guaranteed to get rid of the pain, I didn’t trust the way the enthesopathy (enthesitis) was ignored, and they hadn’t given me a time the day before the procedure was meant to take place in theatre. How was I to get my ‘driver’ ready and available if they didn’t know when they’d need to take me home? Not fair!
Long story short, I ended up seeing a male rheumatologist. He is not my cup of tea! Very uncommunicative. Sent me for blood tests without telling me what he was testing for. He did tell me my mobility was not good! But he gave me a prescription but didn’t tell me what the medication was that he prescribed! I asked him and all he said was, “Painkillers. Don’t worry, there are no anti inflammatories. I know you can’t have those.”
When I got to the pharmacy, it turned out he’s prescribed Omeprazole to protect my messed up stomach lining, Prednisone for three months, and Sulfasalazine for the foreseeable future. I’d never heard of the latter in all my life! And I didn’t know what he was using it for. Four tablets of it per day a day and no explanation! He tests my urine but doesn’t say why either.
I tried two highly rated rheumatologists. One doesn’t even have a date that I can book an appointment for, and the other set me up for next year May!!
An email from the axial Spondyloarthritis association of our country said that we are short of rheumatologists. I can believe that! And most, just like overseas ones, are old. What will we do when the dinosaur rheumatologists retire?
From that first meeting, I also left with a form for an MRI. At my next appointment, he didn’t tell me my results, I had to ask him, though by the time I saw him, I’d already seen the results on my medical aid scheme (health insurance type company) app!
They said I should write a book 