Helplessness

There's not much worse than watching your child cry, distraught, in pain, begging you to make things better. As a parent there is nothing you wouldn't do to help but when you don't know what's wrong where can you start.

It's the reason parents feel so helpless holding their crying newborn, going through the motions trying to figure out what could possibly be wrong. With time you learn to tell what type of cry means what. You learn to read your baby and it becomes easier until there's the piercing scream of a child who does not even know themselves what is wrong and nothing you can do helps. You pull your hair out, rock them in your arms pacing the room back and forth and many times you'll find yourself crying out of frustration.

Before you know it your child can sign, point or use their words to help you realise what it is wrong. I'll never forget the first time I was comforting melody after she woke in and she said "juice mummy". I cried. She was 19 months and 2days old making Ginny 4yrs and a few weeks old (being 2yrs, 6mons, 2wks and and 1 day older). I was still struggling through sleepless nights with Ginny and as proud as I was of Melody all I could think of was how many of those night Ginny may have wanted to just tell me she was thirsty and couldn't do so.

Ginny was 18months when she regressed and lost her words. Today she is 5years 8months 2weeks and 3days old and I've just spent the better part of two hours trying to comfort her and figure out why she was crying. She's still red faced and sweaty from the bout. Her sister is only 3years 2months and two days old today but she has spent the last couple of hours making me incredibly proud. I handed her her peppa pig doll and said it was time for doctor peppa and nurse melody to help make Ginny feel better cause was poorly. We gave her medicine, juice, sang her songs and laid with her until she settled. I congratulated nurse melody and doctor peppa on curing their patient and we celebrated with custard creams. Then the screams started up again. Melody wanted to cuddle Ginny and give her kisses to make her feel better but when Ginny is this worked up its too dangerous for Melody to try because she may accidentally hurt her. I put Melody in the other bunk and she started singing songs to help. I wanted to cuddle Ginny too but being pregnant its dangerous for me as well. I leaned over the bed with my tummy kept safe by the bedframe and mattress and tried my best to comfort her. In the end I popped Ed Sheeran on and by the 4th track she had calmed.

Maybe she was tired of my and her sisters voices, maybe the calpol had kicked in, I won't ever know. I'm not sure if the helplessness I felt now was worse than when she was a newborn but I think it was. I think you come to accept that it's natural with a newborn but knowing that your reception age child is still suffering because they can not tell you what is wrong tears you apart in an incredibly cruel way because you know they should be able to.

Today has been one of those days where I hate Ginny's autism more than anything else in the world. I know it's a part of her wiring but I damn it because of the way it makes her suffer. There's not much worse in the world than watching your child cry, as a parent there is nothing you wouldn't do to stop their suffering. Today I would have given anything to take away Ginny's autism and make her nuerotypical. Most days I only hope for her to learn to communicate or become higher functioning but today I wanted it gone.