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Louise Thomas
Editor
In October 2005, I was 19 years old and studying at university in Edinburgh. I went away for the weekend to this place in the middle of nowhere in rural Scotland for a friend’s birthday. We weren’t allowed to drive a car because the dirt tracks were too rough, but they offered us a quad bike instead.
On the way back, my friend, who’d grown up using quad bikes, asked if I wanted to drive. I was a bit scared, but she told me to just go really slowly. There was a pothole, and she told me to slightly turn into the hill, which I did – and then one of the back wheels slid off the edge of the track. We went into this huge drop that eventually landed in a river at the bottom. I was thrown off first.
Amazingly, the other three girls were pretty much fine, other than a broken finger. I was in agony and suspected I might have broken my feet. I thought my legs were stuck in mid-air, and asked my friend if she could take my boots off and check if there were any injuries. “You’re not wearing any boots, and your feet are on the floor,” she said. That’s when I realised that something was really wrong.
I had to be airlifted to hospital in Glasgow, where they told me my spine was a mess – it looked like someone had taken a hammer to a meringue. They said I’d likely never walk unaided again. The best-case scenario was that I might be able to walk with crutches – but whether I’d be able to do two, 10 or 20 steps remained to be seen.
The issue of whether or not my accident would impact my chances of motherhood bothered other people more than me at first. My mum was fielding 100 phone calls a day from friends and family asking, “Can she feel her toes? Can she wiggle her toes? Do you think she’ll be able to have children?” I couldn’t even pee on my own at that stage – I just wanted people to lay off the baby question for 10 minutes.
I put off addressing “the kids thing” for a long time. But as I got older, I realised I had never got a definitive answer. I eventually asked my urogynaecologist whether it would even be possible for me to have a baby. He said there was no reason why I wouldn’t be able to conceive, but that pregnancy is physically demanding on a healthy person – and I had health conditions that would be affected by it. Giving birth would be a big risk.
I felt like I was carrying this awful news around – that there was a high chance I would not be able to have children. When do you bring that up in a relationship? It’s not exactly first date chat. And I dated some absolute monsters. Some guys just assumed I’d snog them because “I wouldn’t have any other offers”. There was one guy who thought going out with a disabled person was some huge badge of honour. He introduced me to all these people as if he were a hero – I was so embarrassed!
I can’t worry about what other people think or say or do. All I can do is work my arse off to make sure that no one else is on the receiving end of these comments
I was never that optimistic about finding someone and I didn’t really care. I thought, I’ve got enough on my plate as it is, and I’m quite happy looking after myself. The baby issue felt immaterial. Then I met my now-husband, Andrew, at a wedding. And suddenly it was really easy. He never had a problem with my disability. He didn’t charge around, raving about how wonderful he was for going out with someone like me. I thought, “Oh, so this is what it’s like when you find the right person. It’s easy.”
Six months in I thought I should probably have the kids conversation. I told him I wasn’t 100 per cent sure if I could have them; and, even if I could, I wasn’t 100 per cent sure that I wanted to put my body through it. He just said we’d cross that bridge when we came to it – that he wanted to be with me, no matter what.
After we got married, I went to see the doctor. He said I should be able to have a baby – not a natural birth, but a caesarean under general anaesthetic. I decided to take the plunge. I’ve always been very determined, but having a baby was the one thing I secretly thought was never going to happen – the thing I thought I’d lost that stung the most. When I woke up after my caesarean, my husband was sitting next to me with a baby in his arms. I thought, “Oh my God, I’ve done it, and I’m alive.”
The health risks were not to the baby but to me – in pregnancy, in birth, and immediately after the birth. I had decided I was fine with that. But people who didn’t know me were immediately concerned about the baby. They were like, “Really, you’re going to have a baby? Will the baby be OK? How are you going to look after it?”
Suddenly all these people were asking if it was “fair” for me to have a baby if I wasn’t going to be physically able to parent to the same level as someone without a disability.
The worst part was that, in the run up to the birth, I was genuinely worried about everything everybody was saying to me. I questioned whether I was going to be as good a parent. And then when I had my first son, I realised that all of it was absolute crap.
People tell you that it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do, that it’s a massive life change and a huge adjustment – but it is for everybody. In fact, I was better prepared for it than any of my friends. I’d had multiple massive operations. I was used to being physically unwell. I knew how to navigate the doctor, the GP, the pharmacy, everything you need for a baby.
I’m so annoyed that I listened to all that noise beforehand. When you’ve got a disability, everyone just perceives it as this massive risk and brands you as selfish and questions how potentially damaging it might be to a child. It’s just wrong. My children are completely aware of disability. They’re really positive about it – it’s second nature to them.
What comes out of someone else’s mouth is a reflection on them, not you. If someone pipes up with, “Oh, how do you do the school run?” Well, I can drive! They look like the idiot, not me. I can’t worry about what other people think or say or do. All I can do is work my arse off to make sure that no one else is on the receiving end of these comments – to stand here and say, “ta-da!” and prove them wrong.
In a way, I’m very lucky that I was 19 when I had my accident, because I’m now 18 years down the line, and I’m only 38 and I’ve got a platform to be able to hopefully help others in a similar position. I’m the CEO of Cool Crutches, a company that I first started with my mum back when I was in hospital. The crutches they issued when I was doing physio gave me really bad blisters on my hands – we just wanted to create a product that was comfortable and quiet, that didn’t slip, that looked good. It was a side project until 2021, when I started working on it full-time.
I wouldn’t be who I am without my disability. I wouldn’t be doing what I do. I wouldn’t be as grateful as I am for what I have. I thought I was never going to walk again, date, have kids, get a job. And yet I’ve ended up with a very healthy family and my own business.
Parenting has completely changed my whole outlook on what you can and can’t do. I have an enormous amount of purpose. I feel like I’ve never wanted to do more, live better, look after myself more, be healthier.
My kids – Rufus is six and Ralph is four – are hilarious! Every day, every month, every year, it gets better and better. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I’m just so grateful that I did – and that I didn’t listen to other people’s opinions.
