Special Needs Round-up: Whistle stop tour of the month

I can always judge the manic pace of a month by how jolly quickly my Britmums special needs round-up seems to whizz around. I mean, surely I only wrote the last one last week, didn’t I? It can’t possibly be the third weekend in this month already can it?!

This month really has been jam-packed with ups and downs! I’ll take you for a whistle stop tour…

That local councillor who thought ‘disabled babies should be put down’ has finally resigned. There’s a linky if you have written a post to show your relief, although I for one saw no reason to celebrate. Neither did Premmeditations, she explains why in Collin Brewer’s Resignation, or Why I’m not Popping a cork just yet.

The All Party Disbility Abortion Law Inquiry report is out with very encouraging recommendations, on providing women with more unbiased support to make informed choices and also reduce the number of terminations that currently take place ‘up to and during birth’ each year. So there have been media interviews to do, including a petrifying interview live on BBC1 Show Sunday Morning Live with Samira Ahmed last weekend.

Britmums Live of course was a highlight, I was so honoured to have again been a finalist in the Inspire Category of the BiB Awards. Thank you to everyone who believed in me and all the other amazing finalists and of the the incredibly deserving winners.

I still haven’t found time to write about the tears, friendships, inspiration, support and giggles that that couple of days gave me. Thanks to some fab workshops, I’ve been busy spring cleaning and pruning my blog since to make it easier to navigate and I’ve given it a little facelift too, and I’ve had a go at my first iMovie on my phone, capturing Natty’s first moments on her balance bike. Woo woo! I even started a writing project after a nudge from the Literary Dragons.

One of the ladies who led me astray that weekend, Everyone Else is Normal, wrote brilliantly about When Harry Met Sally … and the Britmums and why we were told to pipe down in a restaurant on a Saturday night at 9pm.

Our local hospital became host to a beautiful roving photographic exhibition called Trisomy 21 last week, which features many large portraits of children and young people with the condition living within our county. Natty is featured too and was delighted to see herself in the main link corridor on our last visit.

I was also very excited to showcase a guest post on my blog, an interview with actress and speaker Sarah Gordy who doesn’t let Down’s Syndrome limit or define her. Sarah is a beautiful woman who leads the way for our children and I’d love you to read her words.

Importantly for us as a family, Natty is going in to hospital to have her tonsils out. We are nervous but trying our best to prepare her in a fun way, and are busy packing lots of treats for her night in as we describe in Preparing for Tonsillectomy the fun way. Any operation, however minor is frightening for parents, and for me the thought of the anaesthetic brings back memories of her heart surgery 3 years ago.

A wonderful post from Steph Nimmo over at Was This in the Plan??? tells of how it is so very hard for her to remain ‘glad’ throughout the exhaustion, worry, fear and endless medical interventions that form her life. Pollyanna Can Take a Hike.

Finally, none of you can have failed to notice the heatwave we are experiencing in the UK. Many of us laugh it off, some lap it up. ‘We musn’t complain’, we say as we trot off to buy a fan or an ice pop. But summer does bring additional problems for many children with specific conditions or disabilities. Jane at Northen Mum writes from the heart but also educates those of us who have no experience of  Type 1 Diabetes in her post describing the devastating effects of the heat on her daughter at night. Diabetes: What You Don’t See.

The heat for some is too much and it can be difficult to control yourself if you can’t cool down. Wasp stings and broken glass proved to be catatsrophic for Autism Mumma one afternoon as it heralded a massive meltdown in her daughter. I think we all join Jeanette in saying roll on the summer holidays where we can take things at our own pace. My children are wrung out and frazzled too.

Stay safe and have fun one and all.

H x