Episode 23: Emily Souder, Motherhood, chronic illness and how you can talk about it with your children

Although Emily Souder was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s 6 years ago, the only real advice she was given by her Doctor was “to start to eat a gluten free diet.”

Emily went through a normal pregnancy with her son and seemed to be managing well, however she was placed in the care of an Endocrinologist for her pregnancy with her daughter and given thyroid replacement hormones and monitored closely.

It wasn’t until 9 months ago that Emily really began to feel that she was going down hill.

She developed Arthritis in her hands, experienced low energy, pain and tiredness that began to make it difficult for her to be the Mom that she wanted to be for her 4 year old son and 2 year old daughter.

It was hard when her children wanted to hold her hands or pull on them because of the Arthritis and frustrating when Emily wasn’t able to have the energy she needed to take her children out and play with them as she wanted to.

Normal Motherhood can be guilt inducing enough but when you add chronic illness to the mix, it takes it to a whole new level!

The realisation that “this may not go away” put Emily on a mission to find a way to talk about the day to day issues that her chronic illness causes, in a way that her young children could understand and that would still leave them feeling safe about what was happening to her.

Have a listen to Emily’s story of her experience with chronic illness and how she deals with being a Mom of young children in a way that feels right for her family.

You can listen using the player below or search for the Emotional Autoimmunity podcast on iTunes, Spotify and most podcast players.