Laugh or You’ll Cry: My life as a mum with MS and a son with autism. Sue Askins

on the other end of the phone kindly informed me that it was my own fault. I shouldn’t be pregnant. Rather upsetting!

      I made a few phone calls, eventually having to go to the principal. Luckily he changed the date to the beginning of September, a month after my due date. None of this did me any favours with my immediate section leader, as I went over her head and made her look very foolish. She never forgave me.

      To top it all the Norwegian publishing company went bust! Which, ironically, later led to a new long-running contract for Julian with a large art publisher in London, who’d also suffered a loss from the firm. However, I don’t think we felt very cheery at the time, not getting any recompense for all that hard work. We lost a lot of money.

      It was a troubling few months. But among all this turmoil, in May we moved into our new cottage, which we’d lovingly restored over the previous year. The church clock opposite, chiming every 15 minutes, kept us both awake for the first few nights. But it was a super home.

       6

       New baby

      August 1992. Our new baby boy arrived in two hours, a slightly smaller version of Josh: dark eyes, and with beautiful long eyelashes. He was alert from the first moment, feeding straight away, no messing around. I felt blessed with two wonderful children.

      Harvey was four weeks old when I drove the 90-minute journey for my interview, leaving him with relatives close by so I could rush off and breastfeed him at lunchtime. I had mastitis, was feeling tired, suffering with a headache (I’d had it for days), and the interview panel were sat in front of a dazzling window, so I could hardly see; it hurt my eyes with the glare behind them.

      After all that, I didn’t get the job. I’m sure they hadn’t appreciated me ‘altering’ their interview schedule by a month, and perhaps thought employing someone without babies and sore breasts was a safer option. How deflating – all that effort for nothing. Meanwhile, my headache developed into optic neuritis, leaving me with blurred vision for seven weeks.