Note: This is more about me than Ben – low on anecdotes about a seven year old, high on analysis of my life choices.

(Marginally deranged photo of us at Legoland)

I’ve never been someone who planned my life. I never really thought about my wedding day until I got engaged, I never had a particular career plan beyond qualifying as an architect, I sort of knew I wanted kids but didn’t give much thought to what kind of mother I would be. Then I married someone who also isn’t particularly a planner, and so we pottered along planning what we would do next but not much beyond that.

The one thing we did plan was that we would live abroad. And through James’s job, in 2006 we were planning to move to Damascus. At some point during the preparations I was talking to a good friend who, encouraged by it being late and us both being a bit drunk, said he was really surprised that I was following my husband to another country, that of all the people to do that he didn’t think it would be me.

It really pulled me up short. Was he right? I thought of myself as a slightly bolshy feminist – had I succumbed to being a Good Wife? No, as I explained inarticulately. We had discussed James’s job applications and I had agreed to all of the destinations. I would qualify as an architect while we were in Syria, and anyway we were going to get to live in Damascus which was the opportunity of a lifetime. So no, I hadn’t compromised anything, I was choosing to do this with my eyes wide open.

I am currently a stay-at-home mother to three kids. What’s good about my approach to life is that having had no real plan for who I would be means I can’t compare expectations with reality. But I’m pretty sure I thought I would be working. And I definitely thought we would be living abroad with kids. And travelling a lot.

Some of those things I feel a bit sad about – it is tricky to travel with Ben and he hasn’t seen nearly as much of the world as I would have liked him to. Others make me feel a bit uncomfortable, and I recall the drunken 2006 conversation – have I drifted into being a Good Mother? Have I abandoned bolshy-feminist Jess for a life of wiping and school runs?

I have been thinking about this lately because it’s been a while since I did any paid work. Sometimes I wonder to myself why I’m not working – surely it would be possible to organise enough help to make that happen, surely someone would employ me? Maybe I’m being a bit pathetic and all of my reasons for being at home are actually excuses…

And then I do my annual lecture to some MSc students where I am asked to set out what being a parent of a severely disabled child is like. And amidst the descriptions of a typical day and complaints about social services, I count up all of the appointments Ben has had in the previous year to produce our very own stats which show that in 2016 Ben had 116 appointments. This is down from over 150 in 2015.

Cue: small gasp! The majority of those are therapy appointments (physio, OT, speech and language) and most of those are at home. At least sixteen appointments were to see doctors, dentists or hospital-based clinics. Others were to do with Ben’s wheelchair, or about equipment, or xrays, or community nurses, or school meetings. These aren’t unnecessary appointments – they are useful, constructive discussions with doctors, or crucial tests, or important reviews. We weed out and cancel the very few things that we think are superfluous, to avoid Ben missing school unnecessarily.

Some of these appointments, particularly home-based physio, can be done with a carer rather than me but only if we have a carer here after school which we haven’t for the last two months. Others need to be with James or me.

And that’s why I’m not at work. Because if you work part-time and your son has on average two appointments every week, your working week is going to be massively disrupted. Because the care of your son can only be delegated if you can find the right carer, a carer who will inevitably be challenging to replace when they leave. Because while the 22 different professionals Ben sees are in theory talking to each other, the reality is that Ben gets more out of all of them if I am talking to them all and making sure they are coordinated.

Add to all of this a large construction project while we adapt our house, three house moves within two years, and two other kids keeping me busy and I realise why I don’t feel like I spend as much time sitting around, or writing blogs, as I would like. I do, however, have time to take Max to the adventure playground after school sometimes.

It’s an individual choice – I know mothers of disabled children who work and their children are no worse off for it. But for us, the juggle of doing all that these three kids require plus us both working would be too much. I have decided that will be me for now (there’s no inherent reason it couldn’t be James) and we are in a position for it to be possible. So I am choosing to work (and I mean work, anyone who thinks a paid job is harder than being at home with my three kids has not spent a week with said kids) at home. I shall not feel bad about it, I will feel proud (and less anxious than if I was trying to do a responsible job in addition to the other demands on my time). This is the right thing for me and my kids right now.

Right, better go, Ben’s got another appointment to get to…