insomnia

I didn't catch the PM programme on radio 4 which invited people to call in with tales of how insomnia had effected their lives, just the asking bit the day before. On the day I was too busy.
Because of insomnia.
It's kind of like being pregnant, only, when you're pregnant, you know you will give birth - there are all the scans and tests. The possibility of him having Downe's, the wanting him anyway, the waiting and waiting, but you know you are in the right, that it's natural, and everyone is rooting for you.
When they take your child, your beautiful, bright child who kisses you awake in the morning, when they take your child away, and say they "are putting the child first" that is not a good wait.

He didn't have Downe's. He didn't have anything except us. His Daddy has MS and his Mummy got so tired she lost the plot. For one day.

So they took him away. And when, after 8 days EIGHT DAYS he saw me (not his Dad, just me) he could not stop crying. I'd distressed him, they said. That's what's written down, and trotted out, over and over. But no one writes down that it was because he had thought we were dead - no one had told him why he could not go home.

And now, because I cry when they say he can't come back, they say I'm suffering from mental illness. But it's just that the sleeping pills the doctor gave me don't work anymore.
And when they say I look terrible, they don't think that my missing my beautiful child might be the reason.
And now they are talking about fostering
my child, the child whose school says he is so bright, with such great general knowledge and brilliant vocabulary, polite and well behaved, a lovely wee boy. And his head mistress hugs me, and the school nurse gives me understanding looks. And the social worker says even if we win the court case, she will appeal, because
"he should be in care"

And I didn't sleep last night, and I will not sleep now, and all the time he drifts away and away in a boat made of her smile