Lordy I'm angry.

Angry and frustrated.

All up I have 5 children... My eldest is fine. My second eldest, my son, has ADHD which also means learning problems, my next child is fine, then there is my 8 year old who has GHD (Growth Hormone Deficiency) and Cortisol Deficiency and now my 2 1/2 year old has problems as well - except these are DoCS induced.

The issues of my son and my 8 year old can't be pinned on me. DoCS tried - but doctors gave them nothing to blame me with. Regardless, these issues are not a result of shoddy parenting.

But my 2 1/2 year old... Jeez, DoCS take something and they break it. The new toy is broken now.

I lost custody of her when she was 3 1/2 months - an age too early for her to really be learning things given that infants at this age are not mobile... They just need to reach their first milestones - which she was doing.

I regained custody of her when she was 11 months old... But the damage was already done.

Babies learn more in the first year of their life than they will ever learn in their entire lifetime.

She couldn't crawl - but was crawling within 3 days of being home with me. She couldn't negotiate stairs, she had no first words - the list goes on. She also head-banged to the point where she developed a huge red lump on the back of her head.

I lost custody of her again 12 months later... But by this time she couldn't talk beyond baby garble which was so not like any of my other children. The same problems she came home with still existed. I couldn't fix all of them. I fixed a few.

Her head-banging had almost ceased. She was negotiating up and down stairs with no problems at all, she was rarely sick, her "eczema" was gone (excuse me, but that was CRADLE CAP!!!)

Now, 7 months later, she can't negotiate stairs at all. She can't even walk up a slide. She's dreadfully unbalanced on her feet and easily topples over (worse if she's tired). She can't sit alone and play for any period of time... Among other issues... And she is always so sick! Boy is she so sick. I've not known her to be healthy in all this time.

She's gone backwards.

I took her to DAT (Developmental Assessment Team) thismorning... She was so wobbly on her feet and so unable to negotiate around and through obstacles that the first thing they told me was that they want her to see a neurologist.

Bloody hell!

Then she settles and begins to engage in activities but the only real improvement in all this time is that she has better ability to focus solely on imaginary play (feeding dolly).

One improvement!

DAT tells me that this is how she always has been... I haven't got a clue, this was the first DAT appointment I've been able to go to... All the rest were for the carer.

So the CSO comes to pick her up from my house and I go on the attack.

I vent that my daughter has gone obviously backwards... I vent that there is no way she would be able to negotiate the stair cases at my old house if I was still living there... I vent that constantly being sick is not only affecting her immune system but is likely affecting her inner ear as well - which in turn would impact on her balance... I vent that the things she could do she can no longer do and that very little improvement has been made.

Did the CSO step up and own the fact that THEY did this to my child?

Hell no!!