10/11/13 - Back at the Clown House

Another day, another long car trip to Hobart. We've made this trip so many times now Soph doesn't even ask if we're there yet. It's a lot easier now that Ellie doesn't need to stop for a bottle every couple of hours though. Now we can just make one stop and ply her with snacks for the rest of the journey!

On our way this time Drew wanted to call in and see some of his family who had never met Ellie before. I'm not going to name them, or their relationship to Drew, and frankly I am so disgusted by what happened that I don't even want to write this at all. I've been debating with myself whether it's the right thing to do. But I know that the only way to enact change is to speak up. The only way people like this can learn that their behaviour is inappropriate s to tell them. And I guess Ellie is going to discover that there are some crappy people in the world whether I protect her from them or not.

I was prepared to be ignored myself when we arrived, and I wasn't wrong. That didn't really bother me. I'm a grown up, if you don't talk to me I'll sit here and bad-mouth you in my head but I can take it. What really got to me, what had me in tears, was that they ignored Ellie. One wouldn't even come in the same room as us, and the other did everything he could not to talk to her or look at her. To make the situation even more hurtful, they have their own little girl, six months older than Ellie, and he kept encouraging her to move away from Ellie and play with other things. 

I Was livid. I don't know what was going on, and I ended up taking Ellie and sitting in the car rather than sitting here and feel like my daughter had the plague. Just a heads up, Ellie isn't contagious. You can not catch a cleft lip and palate. You can't even catch our bad luck. I was hurt beyond belief.

It took quite a few kilometres of distance before I calmed down. Luckily I was able to debrief about it with a couple of good friends, and that helped lower my blood pressure a little. The rest for get rip was I eventful, aside from a few really stupid drivers on the roads! 

We arrived at Ronald McDonald House just as the volunteer was leaving. She signed us in and handed us our key, and we went upstairs to settle in. We scored the large family room this time, which meant our own bathroom and even a queen bed for me and Drew. 

Bec and Ash had come down earlier in the day, and Mum, Mel and Nan were there as well. We had plenty of support arounds us this time. Bec organised some dinner for us all, and soon enough it was time to settler he girls in to bed and get ready for sleep ourselves. 

Usually I'd be exhausted after that drive, but I was anxious about the surgery the next day and wasn't really looking forward to tossing and tuning all night long.