Having a child is an experience that is a radical change for most fathers and mothers. Suddenly a creature appears in your monotonous but controlled life that dismantles your schedules and daily depletes your energies to the point that there are days that you have not just seen the light at the end of the tunnel.
If this happens with many of the people who have our whole body and our senses one hundred percent of our abilities, imagine what it can be like to have a child when you are Estrella Gil, a woman who has a cerebral palsy due to a bad praxis at birth that caused him a disability of ninety percent and that he needs a walker or a wheelchair to get around.
This is what Estrella explains in his book Adapted maternity, a book in which it shows a different but equal way of being a mother, and I say the same because this woman has a 22-month-old son named Miquel who grows, fattens, talks and smiles happily as any child her age could.
It is not that he had it easy in any way, now that he is a mother, because of his obvious disability, or before he is, because of the majority misunderstanding. As he comments in a passage from his book:
On Wednesday, following the instructions of the emergency doctor, I took my urine to the nurse and she did the test. After a minute he looked at her and said without looking at my face: "Yes, you are pregnant. What do you intend to do with the child?"
Now that she is a mother she has to prove almost daily that she is capable of being it and with this book she shows it, both to the people who see her doubt it, and to those people who, with some disability, think that it should be impossible to take care of a baby.
This is the magic of this book, which serves as proof that the wishes of being the mother of most women can be fulfilled, almost against all odds and even as a sign that difficult and complicated breastfeeding can be overcome (Estrella has always had trouble putting Miquel to the chest), which she herself took for granted, since she still breastfeeds.
By the way, if you are interested in this story, we plan to interview Estrella so he can tell us a little more about his book and its history.
