Mail on Sunday Magazine

[lottiejenkins]

I found this article today..........I thought it was very moving,,,, what a decision that lady made... dont think i could do it though!
www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/you/article.html?in_article_id=522925&in_page_id=1908

Fiofio, i live in Suffolk, my son is at school in Margate now, he should stay there till he is 17/18 i hope!

lottie thats better a mother who has earn't the right to the name.
we have considered boarding school for dd. as luck would have it her present school is the best one for her. she has respite there. and as she gets older i will have it increased(no try I will)
I think sending your child to a school because you know your child and what they need is a totally different thing to waht this woman did.

Have just found this as well,
www.henriettasdream.org/stories.asp

that artacle is shocking.

I can see how someone can get so warn down by caring for a disabled child that they might want someone to take that child away, have no experience but can only imagine the strain that having to give 24 hour care, be up 2/3/4/more times a night for 1/5/10 years would put on the strongest person, and how you might reach a point of just wanting it all to end. But this woman had had three months. not with a severely disabled child, but with a baby. And lots of babies scream for the 1st 3/6 months of their lives, if they have colic or similar, so what she was going through at the time wasn't abnormal. It was what she might have been faced with after that that she clearly couldn't handle. And yet she couldn't possibly have known what the future held? but obviously a disabled child didn't fit into her life and so she chose her husband and walked away from her child.

And I think that what makes me angriest of all is the fact she went on to have another child. . and now Immy gets to visit her nt siblings on a friday - she's the disabled child that is allowed to be with her nt family at their convenience .

Although maybe on the flip side it's better that Immy is with someone who genuinely loves and cares for her, rather than with someone for whom she would only have been an inconvenience. .

What a shallow woman. I hope her other children grow up to see her for the person she really is. And to see their father for the bastard he is as well.

Shoite - I'm listening to her now. I cannot believe the 'sang froid' with which this woman is relaying her story.

She says that even the vicar was advising her that it wasn't 'her destiny' to look after Immie. FFS .

denial?

wow fantastic,to read these comments.
I could have been Imogens mum 20 years ago. He was my first baby and I knew personally two women who had adopted profoundly disabled babies and both did an incredible job of bringing them up and loving them ( still do).I thought I could go on and have more nt children and that them none of my family would suffer.In the end I didnt have the guts to go through with it.
I think dh would have just gone along with it,if I had given him up,glad possibly.The baby was just a thing,I didnt love him,I hated him for been profoundly disabled and for not dying,and I was very very angry and raged against fate.Other mums of pmld babies were so thankful their babies had pulled through,and made me feel so freakish for having such negative thoughts. 20 years later,Im really glad I didnt give him up,even though dhs health is shot.I got used to or over feeling so depressed over ds,and ds has enriched my Life,made my Life even.My younger daughter seems to have roll with the punches attutude to Life,and no-one is odd in her eyes.What a pity this poor woman and her boyfriend couldnt hang in there and receive the right sort of support.As for the Vicar....!! What the f is that all about? My dh is oxford educated and up his arse,but he adores our ds,maybe beardy would have to if given the right support. I really hope this highlights the problems families have with coping with a child with severe disabilities.For me,I could have been Immies mum.Thank God I didn`t give my baby up.As for the mums who were glad their pmld babies pulled through,all 3 gave them up for adoption about 7 years later.Maybe this mum,who has been so searingly honest,would have been the one who kept her baby and did a cracking job of it.Thanks for all the comments,brilliant x

I do wonder whether she could have given Immy up so easily had she not been in hospital. ie how easy would it have been to actually hand the baby over as opposed to just not going to collect her?

I guess immy's stay in hospital would have given them a glimpse of their old life back and it was easier to just not go back to the way things would have been, iykwim?

I agree re the counsellor fio, very bad practice.

This article made me very sad.

Then I felt very angry.

Then sceptical.

Then sad again.

She didn't give away a child. She abandoned her baby. She hadn't even tried caring for her, but abandoned her in hospital. There was no Tania lined up, they hadn't met her and thought that she would do a better job than they would. They seemed to decide as soon as they realised Immie wasn't "normal" that they didn't want her any more.

I appreciate that the article has been heavily edited from a book and so we don't see the full story but the essence is that Immie wasn't part of their perfect lifestyle so she wasn't wanted. Which is terribly sad.

And I don't quite believe that the various people she quotes (i.e the vicar, the doctors, counsellor etc) said what they said to her. I imagine she has adapted their original quotes to fit her unsavoury actions. But then they can't come along and contradict her as it would go against their professionalism so she is in a win/win situation there!

At least Immie seems to be happy now with a mum that loves her and cares for her.

I agree with you sidge about leaving her in hospital.Yes I think that did make it easier.Also I think she had tried to love her but couldnt get past the disability. She didnt completely abandon her as she has her to stay,which makes me think that with the right sort of support she could have done a good job of caring for her.

I sort of see what you're saying time4me, but I don't think she did try very hard to love her. She didn't give it long did she? And I wonder if even with support she would have cared for her, I just don't think having a disabled child was in her "family plan".

Well I've listened to the women's hour thing and am very

I don't get it.

She makes out that she was worn down by the care because Imogen screamed for the entire first year. But she only had her for 5 months. She did 'lots' of research before deciding to leave her in hospital. Yes a whole week's worth. She did it to save the relationship with her elder child - you can do that without abandoning a disabled child. Beardy is 'a loving father' whilst he was dumping Immie's stuff presumably. She would never be capable of forming relationships- except she has one with Tania (which she seems to need the professionals to confirm as a 'real' relationship). She kept on going on about a 'normal relationship', What does she think a normal mother-child relationship is? It's about touch and love and that deep bond not playing.

I don't understand why she's done the book. I can understand (especially after reading time4me's post) about the shock of being told your child is severely disabled (and to a certain extent we didn't get that because ds1 was assumed to be far less affected than he is- I never initially considered that he would need lifelong 24 hour care for example) but to then create this weird version of reality - which doesn't make sense then publically hold it up. That weird comment about 'symbolically' still being her parent. WTF?

She doesn't sound to me as if she's gone through some great journey as she talks about it as if it happened to someone else. Nothing of what she says makes any sense to me.

I think she's in total denial. Still. And time4me I think you're right that with the right support (or a different boyfriend/husband) she might have managed for longer.

She does that whole thing of treating people who look after profoundly disabled children as some sort of saints. Which doesn't really help change attitudes.

I do agree with you Sidge,but I still feel more sympathy than contempt for her,especially as Beardy gave her a cruel ultimatum.I wonder what they are really feeling and also what their girls will feel about them when they are grown up.

She seemed really surprised when the women's hour presenter said that beardy's actions would be seen as cruel by some (did she use the word cruel? something like that).

Love your thought provoking comments yurt but still feel convinced that this poor family needed the right support,not the bloody vicar who obviously didn`t have a clue.Someone who could help them grieve,and then move on and love their child.They still seem stuck and have not moved on,otherwise why did she write a painful account,and she sounds so detached.

Someone told me once that when she found out her baby was severely disabled it was like a bereavement, and that she'd had to grieve for the child she thought she was going to have in order to accept the child she now had.

Is it possible she just could never accept that this child was her's, because she couldn't accept the child she was supposed to have (the sparky child, like her dd1) had gone?

Agree absolutely with that time4me. I really think this book is a potential huge mistake for her as she doesn't sound like she's remotely come to terms with what happened, and instead the decision she made became others (like the blasted vicar) and the carer becomes someone saintly whilst she becomes not up to the job.

When I read this article it just struck me that the mother's attitude seemed to be something from 50 years ago when disability was hidden and disabled children were frequently given up for adoption or placed in care very early in life. I felt quite amazed that the events were recent.

It seems that Immie is loved and well cared for so I'm not sure that it should matter who does the caring but I do wonder if her mother will ever regret her actions.

I totally agree with you wannaBe,and also the consultant did not help,by saying such painful things like,well she isn`t going to be like dd1.What does he know,has he had a disabled child?Could he not have talked about a different kind of spark.I am looking round respite homes for adults now as my son is 20.I saw an elderly pmld man in a wheelchair.A carer said he is going to visit his mum in hospital today,and the way that old bloke sparkled is something I will never forget.BTW in my town there are 3 parents in their 90s caring for their severely learning disabled children. not cos its probably whats keeping them going!

I remember in Paul Bro's book which is a series of case studies taken from his work as a ??? clinical psychologist. he said he was caring for a young man who had been in a road accident and was severely brain damaged. He described how he thought this young man had nothing left. How he reacted violently to touch and how he thought it would have been better if he had died.

Then he saw the man with his mother and he was relaxed and cuddled up to her and looked totally at peace. And he could see the bond the two had and how they both got something out of it. And he realised he'd been guilty of judging the man;s life as not being worthy. And how he felt shamed for having thought like that.

Or something like that. I don\t have the book so I can't re-read. But there was something about these articles that reminded me of that piece of writing.

Paul Brok I mean