This is Chloe. She
is 2 years and almost 3 months
(born 25th December 1999).
We found out when she was 17 months that it had been due to Williams Syndrome not bad parenting (as I had been made to feel) why Chloe wouldn't eat, drink her milk, had severe colic until 10 months and why she didn't smile until 8 months. I had taken her to 5 different doctors in and around Santa Barbara, CA. Not one of them believed me when I said that something was wrong, not even when I pointed out that her teeth were badly formed.
It has been very hard on my husband and I, accepting the situation and what is to come. We do stay positive, but as with everyone there are good days and bad days. The unfairness of it for Chloe and for us has been, and is at times difficult to come to terms with.
She is an angel, as well as lots of work. I spent 19 months at home with Chloe, I now work 4 days a week and Chloe is in Nursery School with 'regular' children. She has been doing well, except any bug that is going around Chloe gets hit and hard. Her behaviour problems are getting more pronounced lately along with the temper tantrums. And she has started hitting us as well as the children at school. The tantrums can be very wearing!
Chloe was born in America, where her father is from. We now live in England, where I am from. Over here there are Midwifes who visit you at home as soon as you become pregnant and visit after the birth and health visitors as well as weekly checks at the doctors for the baby. I strongly believe if mothers and children were as well looked after in America as they are in every other westernised industrial country there would be SO many more early diagnosis and less infant mortality. America is a country that is supposed to be the most advanced yet it doesn't even look out for it's young properly. That's the problem of having a health system based on capitalism.
