In this post, we will be telling the stories behind the creation of Voice4u. This will consist of a series of stories, so please enjoy yourself and read them if you wish!

I am the mother of two children. I have a daughter who is eighteen years old, and a son, Wataru, who is fifteen years old. They were both born in the United States. Because my body was not well-suited for childbirth, my first child was born in suspended animation after a long and painful delivery. Despite all of this trouble that we faced upon her entry into the world, she remains healthy to this day. Two years later, I gave birth to my son Wataru; however, because both my child and I were at risk at the time of my daughter’s birth, I was very happy to have been able to give birth to my son safely.

Shortly after Wataru’s birth, I started running into many problems. I thought I was raising him just the same as any mother would raise her child, but something was different. A month after he was born, we discovered a deformity in one of his organs, and I was told that he couldn’t sleep on his side because of this. I remember having to make a stand made out of towels for him so that he wouldn’t slip onto his side. If he slept on his side, he would not be able to breath properly because the cartilage around his organs was not fully developed.

When he was five months old, Wataru suddenly stopped drinking baby formula. Thinking something was wrong, I rushed him to the doctor, where I was told that he had “serious allergies”. Not only was he allergic to milk, but also beans, flour, and eggs. I wondered how I was supposed to nurture a child that was allergic to such ingredients
common in almost all foods.

I remember the days that I stood in the supermarket reading the ingredients label for every product that I picked up. Because I was not very good at English, I would stand there with a package in my hand as I tried desperately to read the label. My hand would become so cold to the point that it was numb each time I picked up a package of frozen food.

On top of all of his food allergies, Wataru was allergic to dust as well, whenever he would have an allergic reaction I would have to wash everything from clothes, sheets, pillow cases and even curtains. The laundromat became like my workplace.

I remember being troubled about not being able to get any reactions out of Wataru even when I cradled him or called his name. At first I thought it was because of his allergies, but then began to think that he had autism.

When Wataru was a year old, I took him to the Hewlett Packard Children’s Hospital. Knocking on the door of the children’s hospital, I was unaware that the second chapter of my life had begun…