The one time I really needed a hand

Excerpted from the fine book: "Bigger than the Sky, Disabled Women on Parenting" edited by Michele Wates and Rowen Jade Published by The Women's Press

Motherhood is difficult with two arms; losing the use of one, then both, nearly broke Jill Daly.

I feel his moist, soft breath on my cheek as he slips his hand under my hair, caressing the small of my neck. My mother warned me about boys like this. With his eyes half closed, his mouth a fraction from mine I realize, too late, what he is up to. The pain is sudden and intense.

"Let go of mummy's nose."

Keir starts to giggle, loosens the grip on my nose. He is two years and one week old, and has just realized that whereas most people have two arms, mummy has only one.

My ticket to the wacky world of disabled people came courtesy of a bus driver who thought it perfectly reasonable to drive a bus forward while looking backwards. I was 29. Strangely, I had always felt sorry for the driver, as it must have been a shock to run someone over. I say "had" because all those benevolent feelings changed when Keir arrived.

As a newly disabled person I was shocked by some of the attitudes I encountered. In hospital after losing my arm, medical staff advised me not to have children. A nurse took Mac (my partner, who became my husband a year later) aside and whispered, "Leave her if you want to. She's disabled. Don't stay with her just because you feel you ought to."

In 1993 I was informed by a nurse who must have modeled herself on the dragon-like matron from the Carry On series that I didn't stand a chance of having a baby because I was polycystic.

"Polycystic women," boomed the nurse, so that everyone in the fertility clinic could hear, "are fat, spotty and have lots of superfluous hair!" My God, not only was I disabled and infertile, I was now about to turn into Godzilla the ape woman. "And not only do you not ovulate," she graciously added, "but you kill off your husband's sperm. You have hostile mucus."

Realizing that I was infertile was more of a shock than becoming disabled. I never knew just how much having children meant to me. Perhaps none of us ever does until the day we find out we can't.

And then out of the darkness, light. In 1994 we embarked upon an adoption course with our local authority with the hope of adopting a sibling group of two or three children above the age of three.

I wondered whether my impairment would go against the adoption. We hear so often from the media that adopting is practically impossible. What we are not told is that there are children waiting to be adopted but many prospective adoptive parents insist on new-born, "perfect" babies.

So it was with great joy that I heard that, for once, my impairment was an advantage when it came to adopting "non-perfect" babies. Our social workers reckoned that because I had had to put up with people's prejudices I would be better placed to empathize with children also in that position.

One point in the adoption process did annoy us, however. We had to say which impairments we were "prepared to accept." Would we take a child with cerebral palsy? Would we take a child with a visual impairment?

Finally we were presented with our completed papers. All we needed to do was wait for the "panel day" when our application would be approved or turned down. We were both on tenterhooks. I missed a period. I assumed this was due to stress but I had a pregnancy test just in case. It was positive.

Very few people understand how we felt. It was assumed that we must be over the moon. "How wonderful!" was the consensus. "Now you will have a child or your own."

It was only when I was three months pregnant, that I began to worry about how I would cope with a baby - adopting children who are past infancy is one thing; looking after a baby another.

Our son, Keir, was born on June 17, 1995. Right from the start nothing went as I had imagined. I put him to my breast only to be greeted by a look which said: "What in God's name am I supposed to do with that?"

Oddly, I didn't get worked up about this. Positioning Keir was difficult, though. I have a vague memory of almost standing on my head on the bed at one point. In the end I gave up and relied on the nurses running to help whenever I rang the bell.

"But how will you cope when you go home?" people asked. I hadn't thought about "home help". Then three nurses came in to ask whether I had a social worker. I froze. Two weeks before I had Keir I had heard a radio documentary in which three disabled mothers talked about how their children had been forcibly taken into care. I stonily replied that I would have plenty of help from my family - a blatant lie. My husband's family live 300 miles away and my mother was recovering from cancer.

The honeymoon period was over. For a while after Mac and I returned home with our week-old son I seemed to have endless energy, but then everything started to work against me. I now know that this is an extremely difficult time for any new mother, but I began to think, in my exhausted state, that it was just me.

The obstacles were endless. We discovered that there was no child car seat on the British market that I could use. It took me half an hour to change Keir's nappy; it took even longer to change his clothes. I couldn't do the safety straps up on his pushchair. I was too exhausted to cook so we lived on takeaways. I seemed to be sinking, losing control.

I think that it was around this time that Mac told me that he had never really considered me a disabled person until he saw me struggling every day with Keir. I was shocked into speechlessness.

So I developed strategies. I went for the easiest route every time. As the breast-feeding was now going well, I did not introduce Keir to solids until he was eight months old. I sought out the old- style babygros with only three or four buttons down the front. Keir lived in these, day and night. I abandoned my principles and switched from "green" terry nappies to modern disposables. As I couldn't get him into a car seat I went everywhere on foot with the pushchair.

Eventually I swallowed my pride and contacted social services, who offered me two sessions a week with a childminder so I could get on with such wonderful occupations as shopping and cleaning.

And then, just when I thought I was coping and Keir was 18 months old, disaster struck. I developed repetitive strain injury in my remaining arm. The pain was intense; I couldn't lift a toothbrush let alone my son. I couldn't push the pushchair.

We had to find a nursery for Keir. I was heartbroken. Having looked after children some years previously I had always vowed to look after my own children. I was discovering that it was easier to be a working disabled mother than a disabled mother who stays at home. The irony of the situation hurt intensely.

I became angry. I began to hate myself. For the first time, I didn't want to be disabled. I wanted my arms back. I wanted to have my baby with me all the time. I didn't want to see his little pale face in tears as he was left at the nursery or with the childminder. He was in pain. I was in pain. I hated the bus driver who knocked me down and changed my life. I wanted to seek him out and shout: "Look! See what you have done! I love my little boy, I want to look after him myself, but instead I have to send him to strangers."

I had flashbacks of the courses I used to run in which I strove to correct the image that disabled people are all angry, bitter people. And now here was I, Godzilla the ape woman, gone totally and utterly berserk.

Fortunately, after six weeks I regained the full use of my arm. A year ago our second son, Calum, was born. Two months ago we discovered that he is profoundly deaf. Being at ease with disability as a family means we can just accept and enjoy Calum for what he is. We are all learning a new language: British Sign Language, which Keir loves. He can now pester us for sweets in two languages!"

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