New Friends - Part 3. Alison :)

One of my hopes for when we were back in Australia was that we would be able to meet someone else with Diastrophic Dysplasia. I thought that possibly that would happen at the SSPA function we went to, but there was no one with DD there. 

I have been very active in online communities, and one such group is a DD support group which I actually started. I had a bunch of mothers and one adult with DD who I had emailed a little, and I figured it was easier to talk with them all via Facebook instead. Little did I know that everyone knew everyone else and my little group of about 7-8 people ended up growing to over 100 members made up solely of adults with DD or parents of children with DD. 

Out of all the members in the DD support group, I believe there is only one member who lives in Australia. That member is Alison. Alison is roughly my age and has DD. She lives very far from where we do in Australia and so I wasn't expecting to be able to meet her. However she and her mother Louise had the chance to come up to my hometown for a weekend when I was there. It was the same weekend as Maddy's dedication service, so they were able to come along.

Out of all of the things we did while we were back in Australia, out of all the people we saw, meeting Alison and Louise was probably one of the highlights of the whole trip. Both of them are amazing people, and fellow-Christians as well. When we went to the SSPA weekend, we felt that with many of the people there, all that we had in common was the dwarfism. But with Alison and Louise, we had so much more in common than that. 

It was great to be able to talk with Louise about her experiences parenting her three children, two of whom have DD. There are many parts of her experience that I can relate to, others that I'm thankful that I cannot relate to, other parts that I know are yet to come. 

And talking to Alison was wonderful as well. I love how Alison has not used DD as an excuse. She went to university and is now a teacher (and I'm sure she's a fabulous one at that!). She's an amazing and beautiful person, both inside and out - and I'm so honoured that she and Louise would take the time and money to go so far out of their way to come and visit us and support us in the early stages of this journey!!

Plus she made Maddy the adorable headband in the picture above! Note to self - I need to learn to knit ;)

I know how much it has meant so much to me to be able to meet Alison, and I know that as Maddy grows, having someone like Alison in her life would be such a blessing in more ways than one. Here's hoping that we have a long and wonderful friendship.