This is one for those who set out on a family making expedition and found themselves travelling a path they weren’t expecting.

Who knows what you’re going to get when you embark upon making people.

It’s an exciting lotto.

Most of us know that there is a risk of things going wrong, but thousands of perfectly healthy children are born every year. Why wouldn’t we have one too? When the scans come back with the all clear and you’ve hit the “safe zone” it’s smooth sailing until d-day. And once that baby is in your arms you’re home and hosed right? Or are you?

Sometimes that’s not the case.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in hospital with our teen who was born with Cystic Fibrosis.

Throughout these years I’ve met a lot of parents going through some horrendous stuff. Usually I’d be making myself a shitty cup of tea when I would meet some fellow hospital parents. The parent room is like a prison yard where by the time you’ve run into the same people for more that a couple of days, one of you inevitably ends up asking “so… what are you in for?”

Some of the parents I have met didn’t know what was wrong with their child. Their exhaustion was palpable with worry strewn across their faces as they downloaded their stories in the moments between toasting bread and dipping tea bags.

These moments have definitely given me a deeper appreciation for the most simple things in life and I was often left in awe of their resilience.

Other parents I’ve met are frequent fliers, like me, supporting their child who is managing a chronic illness. We share the commonalities of having wandered these wards and passages. We share the gratefulness of the brilliant care our children receive, as well as frustrations of finding car parks and being woken by beeping machines. We long for the time to pass quickly and for the treatment to work. We count down the days until we can go home, knowing that we’ll be back again at some point in time doing it all again. Despite this, I often feel grateful that I know what we are “in for”.

In the early years, when we were in the trenches of managing a baby in hospital, I read a poem that was stuck to the wall next to the fridge. I was feeling a bit fragile that this was our life and hadn’t become used to the roller coaster ride of chronic illness.

The poem below was written for parents of children born with a disability, but I think it resonates for all of us who embarked upon this child making caper and didn’t quite get what we ordered.

So here’s to all of us, who not only kick the arse of parenting, but also have extra challenges along the road of parenthood.

M