A few weeks ago T came down with the most horrednous viral infection that saw us visit A&E on more than one occasion. It completely took it out of him and scared us several times.

Ever since starting nursery he’s a dab hand at dealing with bugs. He gets them and usually trundles on give or take some whinging. For us, it seems like we’ve had endless snot and coughing from December!

However, one afternoon T wasn’t right.

In between out of the ordinary whining, he kept falling asleep. He was off his food, and had a temperature hovering around 39 degrees! This wasn’t right. Despite stripping him down and dosing him up with calpol; nothing changed, and after a quick call to the NHS 111 service we were off to the Childrens A&E in Brighton (he had also bumped his head that week, so they wanted to make sure it wasn’t a concussion!).

To cut a very long and scary journey over two days short – he’s now fine. The doctors and nurses were fantastic and after thoroughly checking him over for everything from an ear infection to meningitis they said that T had just been hit with a particularly nasty viral infection that has taken over his body. It sounds silly, but when your child suddenly reaches a temperature of 40 (which also creates several nose bleeds) and has a heart rate 50% higher than what they’re meant to have you kinda shit yourself.

But he’s ok, although even now he’s still got the tail end of the infection. Thankfully though he’s now managing to eat food and even laugh.

Today has seen a vast improvement in T’s mood (and health!). Although he got a little hot in the night due to still being poorly, he’s not half as bad as he was two days ago. Today is the first time I’ve seen our boy return to his normal self. He’s polished off a bowl of weetabix and fruit, one egg, as well as two rich tea biscuits (he is still sick after all 😉).

A photo posted by LesBeMums (@lesbemums) on Jan 25, 2017 at 2:32am PST

But before I leave this post as it is, there’s another reason I wanted to write this post. I wanted to pass on a message to the nurse that looked after all of us on our first night (I’m sorry I don’t remember your name).

Thank you for recognising us as a couple… As a family.

It goes without saying that I’m thankful for you looking after our son, however it means just as much that you recognised us as a same sex family without us having to explain ourselves.

You’d be surprised how many times within the past 21 months I’ve had to correct people and the text on forms . How many times I’ve had to explain (in detail) that T’s father isn’t going to be joining us but his mama is and she’s sitting right there! How many times I’ve seen that look on people’s faces – even for a split second – where they’re quickly trying to work us out. 

For you, it came smoothly. You asked who the birthmother was (there was your first point), you asked my wife, T’s mama, questions and included her in conversation (there was your second point), you asked about T’s donor and not his father (fuck it, have a whole eight points right there).

I know you’ve probably had training, but that doesn’t stop some people from being completely baffled or having to quickly correct themselves from their own normality/prejudice.

For you, it came naturally. And I thank you. 

K