(¾) “My maternity leave was spent bouncing between...

(¾) “My maternity leave was spent bouncing between hospitals, therapists, and the insurance company.  I still talk to a doctor every single day of every single week.  My daughter has had five surgeries already, two on her heart.  I have to fight so much.  It took a month of phone calls with the insurance company just to get her a single shot that she needs to stay alive.  I hear other parents say it’s going too quickly.  But it’s not for me.  We live in a different world.  My kid doesn’t babble.  Doesn’t eat food.  Doesn’t crawl.  My husband is lucky because he has no idea what the milestones are supposed to be.  But I do.  I know what a fifteen-month-old should be able to do.  Every month I have a mom’s lunch with coworkers.  They’re the most fantastic people in the world.  But it’s so hard to hear them complain that their kids follow them around and eat everything.  My daughter has a feeding tube and doesn’t move.  Both my husband and I work full time.  We’re so tired.  It’s like a bucket that’s being drained from so many holes.  But you know what?  It’s better than the unknown.  It’s better than I imagined it was going to be.  Because I’m a parent now.  And when you’re imagining all these things, it’s so hard to picture the love.  She’s such a happy baby.  She gets so proud of herself when she accomplishes something.  She never wakes up crying.  The one thing that comes easy to her in life is love and happiness.”      
(Special Olympics World Games, Abu Dhabi, UAE)