Late last year I gave a talk about Ben and myself to about eighty paediatricians taking part in a training day at the Royal Society of Medicine. I had twenty minutes to give ‘A Parent’s Perspective’. The main challenge was to edit sufficiently to fit within time – given the opportunity there is much I can think of to say. If I were allowed to do Mastermind with Ben as my specialist subject, I would blitz it.

They were a receptive audience and gasped (‘Ben had 157 appointments last year’) and laughed (niche jokes about junior surgeons’ lack of interpersonal skills) at the appropriate points. I was asked a number of very perceptive questions at the end, but I was really struck by one:

“What do you wish you had known, or had been told, when Ben was born – and what would you advise someone just starting out on a similar kind of life to yours?”

I didn’t immediately know how to answer this, but after a momentary panic in front of a large audience, I thought of something and here I will expand on it.

When Ben was in hospital just after he had been born I was expressing breastmilk for him, something I was finding relentless and dispiriting. A breastfeeding support worker put me in touch with a woman I will call E, who had expressed for over six months because her child had difficulty feeding.

Once Ben came home from hospital I couldn’t keep up with a brutal regime of pumping, bottle-feeding, tube feeding and sleep deprivation, so I stopped expressing milk. But by that time I was in touch with E anyway, and she came round for a cup of tea. She told me she thought I was doing brilliantly which was incredibly encouraging.

Meeting her in the first few months of Ben’s life was hugely important. Her son was very different from mine, with a totally different condition, but there were similarities between our lives – not least the shock of realising things are not (and probably won’t ever be) as you expected.

Most importantly, she was heavily pregnant with her second child. The idea that she had been able to accommodate all of the difficulties of her first child sufficiently to decide to have another one gave me hope. Not just that it might be possible to have another child, but that our lives might one day be as optimistic.

I stayed in touch with E and we met periodically, through my emergence from the fug of the aftermath of Ben’s birth, and the births of my second and her third child. It was comforting and fun.

This kind of camaraderie is not unique to parenting a disabled child – much of the success of NCT is because new parents need solidarity and someone who understands the challenges and joys of a brand new baby. But finding yourself talking to a parent of a disabled child is a bit more niche and therefore perhaps a bit more special. There is huge solidarity and comfort in talking to people who have experienced similar difficulties to you, who you don’t have to explain everything to. It is most uplifting if those people are thriving, but actually any contacts will do.

I have since met many other mothers of children who are disabled, complicated or simply non-typical. I tend to find these conversations are accelerated – with no need to do as much explaining, we will very quickly be discussing private feelings and traumatic experiences. We recognise the similarity of our lives, and our subject matter touches on all of the most intimate and important aspects of being human: what your priorities are, who you were and who you have become, how and who you love.

Or sometimes I’ve just had a chat about purely practical matters. No deep connection, but getting the number of a good physio is valuable. Sometimes having a disabled child in common is not enough, and someone is just not my kind of person, but that’s fine. Sometimes things are not going very well and I just need to hunker down and get through it, not talk to anyone.

Over the years these acquaintances have come in many guises – friends of friends, women from the supermarket, bloggers, parents accompanying their children to sessions at Small Steps or fellow students on a course. I have valued these connections hugely.

So if I met myself five years ago, I would say find some friends who have been in a similar position. Either online or in your city. There are people who have survived a life like yours, and many who have thrived. You are not alone.

(You could always send me an email)

P.S. These photos were taken by my brother-in-law, a paediatrician, who attended the conference. People thought he was really weird and a bit obsessed with me and Ben until they realised he was related to us.

P.P.S. I think of my approach to make-up as quite restrained. These photos would appear to show otherwise.