Well, after 4 years of her suffering with encopresis we may finally be on the road to recovery. I had the clarity of mind and strength to make an appointment with a doctor - I wasn't picky who, to try and get some medication that I had researched, and a referral to a paediatrician.

The medication wasn't forth-coming but the referral was, albeit for the encopresis and not the sensory processing disorders. So we buckled in for the 3-6 month wait which turned out only to be 5 weeks.

We saw a peadiatric registrar (someone not certified yet but apparently done all the study and still under supervision) and thankfully this was a female. I am so sick of condescending arrogant male physicians who believe themselves to be gods.

The doctor still has room for learning not to ask leading questions but other than that she agreed with my diagnosis and chosen treatment; making a return appointment for later that week to collect the special script - that is an altogether different story that I won't bore you with.

So here we are 2+ weeks later and working on regulating (downwards) the amount of medication Agate has to take. It is not going to be a quick fix and may take a year, but we have made a start.

In all of this I am angry. Angry that Agate fell through the cracks of the 'health' system despite me raising it with our family doctor 4 years ago. Angry at the child health service that we saw at least twice, angry at the parent educators support scheme that didn't seem to hear that I wanted help, angry at the family therapist that simply advised that if we follow her method the problem would be solved (perhaps most things work for most people, but lady we aren't 'most people').

And the line up wouldn't be complete without discussing how I feel about God's hand in this. Disappointed probably would be the best description. When children are depicted in the bible as so dear to Him, and we all know how very malleable and impressionable they are - why did he not protect dear Agate from the gut-wrenching attack on her self-esteem that now is deeply ingrained? Could He not see how much she has missed out on due to not being able to go out with her, let alone how much our family has missed out on for the very same reason? Why, when we sought a solution 4 years ago did He not make sure that we got what we needed and asked for - does it not say "Ask, and you shall receive"?

Before you think of letting me know that God will use all this to make something beautiful, I don't believe that anymore. The reality is that the last 4 years have been incredibly hard. That Agate's encopresis may well have been the root of her oppositional defiance disorder which has affected our family more than I care to think about. She almost led to our divorce, except that I have to give 'religion' kudos there for making me so blindly stubborn to believe that marriage is for life - just to clarify: she wasn't the reason but her condition was the catalyst for much strife.

God could have stepped in and made sure that Agate was treated, which would mean that she would not have developed such a defeatist, degrading, oppositional attitude. Our family cohesion would have been so much stronger as we could have worked on bonding and all the positive stuff instead of struggling to even cope with one single child and her behaviour and condition. Agate robbed the other children of as close a relationship that they would have had with us as parents and of opportunities to participate outside the family home.

I know that believing in God is not promised to be a bed of roses, but when you hear stories of parting vast bodies of water and raising people from the dead, is it not too much to ask that someone listen to a mother's cries and help as they have been trained to do?

I do not know what will become of Agate. I do not know if this is the beginning of a better future for our family. I do not know how healing of the hurts we have all felt, will come. I do not know how I can tell someone else that God's hand was in all of this. And yet there is still part of me that continues to believe in God no matter what - what is that?