Sweet Child O Mine. #Blogtober20

I am taking part in Blogtober20 throughout October and today's prompt is "Sweet Child O Mine".

I was going to write this blog post about both of my girls but Becky suggested that I just write about Ellie as she has more of a story and she is right. 

Ellie my youngest, my 13 year old has not had an easy life. This isn't a sob story because we're not sobbing over it and she certainly isn't. Things that she's been through have made her who she is today, determined, kind and amazing young lady.

We knew Ellie was going to be different when I was pregnant with her. All the way through my pregnancy she was breech even when I was checked at 35 weeks by the midwife and then at 36 weeks when I had my last scan for my for my planned c-section she had managed to turn herself around and be head down! That shouldn't have happened so I was told. I had my planned c-section and all was fine.

When the health visitor was doing her checks when Ellie was a few weeks old she noticed something wrong with her eye. Ellie was diagnosed with Duane Syndrome. It basically means some of the muscles in her eye don't work properly and one of her eyes doesn't turn out properly. It doesn't affect her day to day life and her eyesight is perfect. The doctors were pretty clueless about this syndrome as it's a rare one.

Soon after that we had the newborn hearing tests which resulted in us being told that Ellie had some hearing loss in her right ear. After a lot more appointments she was diagnosed with Auditory Neuropathy. As time has gone on she has lost all of the hearing in her right ear. Ellie doesn't let her deafness hold her back in fact she sometimes plays on it pretending she hasn't heard me asking her to tidy her room. Ellie finally had a hearing test a few weeks ago. We were on a waiting list when we moved to Scunthorpe and then Coronavirus happened so I was anxious to find out if her good ear was still good. It is, it's actually better than it should be. Phew!

In 2009 Ellie had an accident that potentially saved her and her sisters lives. She jammed her finger in a door and needed surgery to straighten it when they discovered she had a heart defect and later that her sister had the same problem which resulted in them both having heart surgery.

A couple of years later Ellie started school just a few days after her 4th birthday. It really annoys me that I chose to have my c-section on the 29th of August. If I had waited just a few more days she would have been the oldest in the her year group at school instead of the youngest. She struggled at school for years with her behaviour, bullying issues, concentrating and learning until she was in year 5 and her teacher got us some help. She actually listened to what we had been saying for years. It's horrible to say but we knew something wasn't right with Ellie. Her teacher suspected Autism or something similar but after a ton of meetings, chats with people and even more meetings Ellie was diagnosed with social anxiety.

BUT

Despite everything Ellie has been through she amazes me. Her eye problem is hardly noticeable, she's still deaf in one ear but it doesn't hold her back, her heart was partially fixed but she still has leaking valves and she's healthy and her social anxiety has just about gone!

Over the past week she has put her name in the hat to become form tutor captain at school something she would never have done a couple of years ago. Ellie is settled in a fantastic school, has a good group of friends and doesn't let any of the issues she's had in the past stop her!

Over the last year or so she has really grown as a person and matured. I am proud of the young lady she has become, she hates me calling her a child but she is my sweet child.