There's so little out there about disabled parenting. I feel almost desperate for the map, you know.

Welcome to how to. I'm Carvel Wallace. What can a person say about parenting that hasn't already been said? It's nonstop. It's overwhelming. It's mind blowingblowing, and it's intensely rewarding.

But most of all, parenting is physical.

You're carrying your kids around, you're making dinner, you're chasing toddlers through grocery stores and parking lots, you're picking up toys.

Parenting is often a physical act as much as it is, an emotional one.

So what happens if you are a parent, but you have limits on how physical you can be because you have a disability? How do you do what needs doing?

How do you deal with others who doubt your ability to care for your children? These are all

challenges faced by today's listener.

My name's Andrea, and I am dealing with chronic illness and disability, and I have some

questions about disabled parenting and how to make parenting more accessible.

Andrea has a severe, complex chronic illness, and one of her diagnoses is potts POTS or postural

orthostatic tachycardia syndrome it's a condition that can cause lightheadedness

fainting and a rapid heartbeat when you go from lying down or sitting to standing

it can also cause extreme fatigue meaning it's hard for Andrea to be upright for long periods of time, and it's even harder for her to leave the house for the day.

It's a dynamic disability, so it's often invisible actually to other people, unless I'm using a mobility aid.

I'm a part-time wheelchair user, but I didn't start kind of considering myself disabled until,

I don't know, maybe five years ago or so.

And my husband is incredibly loving.

He does the lion share of the work around the house and running errands for us and whatnot.

He's actually disabled too with mental health issues and chronic migraine, but he does

a fair bit of caregiving for me.

You said that you didn't start identifying as disabled until a certain point.

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