Testimony without a Word

By Adele Potgieter

Follow the journey of a young mother who battles to find her place in society as she tries to raise a disabled child as well as two abled children. Experience the trials and tribulations of her journey, her excitement, joy, sorrow, anger, pain, frustration, finding religion and losing herself in the journey. This is a true story that every parent and anyone who has ever been touched by the life of a disabled child, should read.

Testimony Without a Word will touch your life the same way that this little boy touched the lives of numerous people without ever saying a single word.

"I think it’s incredibly brave and selfless of the author to share her story. I’m sure it will help other parents in the same or similar situation – sometimes just knowing that you are not alone, that someone else got through it even though they felt the way you might feel right now, is enough to keep a person strong enough to get through. The fact that the author has been able to share her story, shows her immense strength."

Editor's comment

Adéle holds a PhD in business management and is a lecturer at Nelson Mandela University at George, South Africa. She specialises in Marketing subjects and has successfully published in local and international academic journals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adele Potgieter
• Release date: Apr 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781370805341

Book preview

TESTIMONY WITHOUT

A

WORD

TESTIMONY WITHOUT A WORD

Adéle Potgieter

Copyright © 2019 Adéle Potgieter

Published by Adéle PotgieterPublishing at Smashwords

First edition 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by Adéle Potgieter using Reach Publishers’ services,

Edited by Vanessa Finaughty for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Website: www.reachpublishers.co.za

E-mail: [e-mail]

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

What a Wonderful Life

1. March 1997

The First Two Years

Ophthalmologist

2. Reality

People

Day and Night

Pregnant Again

A Place for Extra Help

School

Eyes

3. Five Years

Finding Religion

4. Hospital

Angel

Going Home

Hospital Again

After the Operation

Anger

25 April 2003 – 11-year Anniversary

26 April 2003

Preparing for the Funeral

The Funeral

5. Life Goes On

God Provides

A New Beginning

6. Finding ME

Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks go to the following:

Our almighty Father for granting me the privilege to bear three wonderful children and providing me with the courage to tell my story;

To my children, Quinten and Estian, for loving me and accepting me the way I am;

To my parents, who prayed for me and held my hand in difficult times;

To Chris, for being a wonderful loving father to all the boys;

To my family for their understanding, love and encouragement;

To my friends, Madeleen and Danie and Nico and Ingrid, who stuck with us throughout it all; and to Louise and Ronelle who shared my joy, tears and heartache;

To my special friend that encouraged me to finish this book after many years, and

To everyone that helped Chris and me in our journey in any way.

Prologue

What a Wonderful Life

It’s a beautiful, sunny Sunday Highveld summer afternoon in 1996. My husband and I are driving home. Chris and I have known each other since we were 14 years old. He went to school in Mondeor and I went to school in Brackenhurst, Alberton, near Johannesburg in South Africa. After school, I went to study and he went to the army. We got married at the tender age of 22 years, as we thought we knew each other well enough and didn’t want to wait. Growing up in a strict Afrikaans household, we would never be allowed to live together, so marriage was the logical next step. We were married for three years when our beautiful baby boy, Quinten, was born. As usual, we had been visiting Chris’s parents on a Sunday and were now on our way back home.

Tears are rolling down my cheeks.

What’s wrong? asks Chris.

I’m holding my one-year-old son, Quinten, on my lap, where he has just fallen asleep, and I am so content with life that it makes me sad. I have a wonderful husband, who is building me a dream house, I have a high-paying job and I’ve just bought myself a BMW 325 i. At 25, I have just about everything a person could dream of. The beautiful baby boy on my lap has made me realise that I have everything that dreams are made of – and I’m thinking, How lucky can one woman be? I’m just so happy.

Life is pretty much as I envisaged it would be for me. I’ve always planned ahead and was pretty much in control of my destiny. The only thing missing at the moment is a second child. We’ve always said we wanted two kids and at the most two years apart. We have wonderful friends and have done most things we said we would before starting a family. We’ve been to Europe, twice to Mauritius and have seen the Far East. Disney World will have to wait until we can take the kids with us. All of this at 25 – I have it all!

1

March 1997

I’m pregnant with my second child and by now we know I’m expecting another boy. I’m glad that we decided to know the baby’s gender before the time, as I’ve had my heart set on a little girl and had time to adjust before the baby arrived.

2 May 1997

I’ve been in labour now for 12 hours, with labour pains 20 minutes apart, and that’s where it got stuck. I’m a bit concerned, as I had been in hospital two weeks prior to today and I hadn’t felt the baby move for two days, and went to see my gynaecologist. I was admitted and put on a foetal heart monitor. I spent a day and night in the hospital on the monitor without seeing the doctor. The baby’s heartbeat was very irregular; eventually, Chris went to the gynaecologist’s consulting rooms to find out when I’d be seeing him. Later in the day the doctor sent me home and said nothing was wrong.

Now it is two weeks later, 12 hours into labour and the nurse comes to inform me that the doctor is going on leave the next day – I should go home and come back when the contractions get worse. I was adamant I would not leave the hospital without my baby this time. I spent the night in the ward with Chris next to me. The next morning, the doctor came around at 8am and said he would induce the birth as he would be leaving soon. His attempts to mitigate the pain of childbirth through an epidural were unsuccessful. So it took 18 hours of excruciating labour and, just before 1 pm on 2 May 1997, I gave birth to another baby boy.

Exhausted and relieved, but now full of joy, I was able to hold my baby for the first time. He was also showing the effects of the extended birth. His face was compressed, his eyes were extremely small and he had a large forehead. He looked just like the New Zealand rugby player, Sean Fitzpatrick, so we decided to call him Sean – not realising then that Sean meant ‘gracious gift from God’.

One thing upset me badly in hospital. The paediatrician tried to make light of Sean’s appearance and said he was so squashed they could play football with him in the passage. This hurt me deeply.

Sean’s Apgar count was 8/10 the first time and then 9/10. I struggled to get him to latch, but the nurse said I was too stressed and shouldn’t let the doctor upset me. She advised me to just keep trying to breastfeed Sean.

I received 20 flower arrangements to celebrate the birth of our son. When I got back home, it was like walking into a garden of colour. I was a financial trader at the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), and friends, clients, brokers and portfolio managers whom I traded with sent flowers. Life was indeed wonderful!

The First Two Years

I breastfed Sean as I did with Quinten, but the process was extremely time-consuming. Sean battled to suck properly and I had to still give him supplement bottle feeds after half an