>> Renee: Very excited and very anxious I can honestly say.
But we were very excited to be expecting a little one.
So yeah everything was great, it was really wonderful.
As you do with any pregnancy there's a whole world of anticipation.
You dream dreams for your child, you wonder what's going on,
you imagine this little person that's inside
and what life's going to be like with them.
It was shocking. It was devastating you know
for them to tell you that your beautiful child who was fighting so hard to stay alive
wasn't, in inverted commas, "going to be perfect"
because you have all these dreams.
And after seven years I have come to realize that Rachel is perfect,
in her own way.
But at that time it's heartbreaking,
you know you have dreams for your child
you have dreams for your life and for your family
and they get taken away really quickly
and you don't want to believe what they're telling you.
You really don't want to believe it.
We're very lucky with Rachel because she's got very clear facial expressions.
So she can definitely let you know with a yes as a smile
or a tongue click, a no and she'll turn her head to the side
and she uses her eyes alot so if she doesn't want something
she'll say no and then she'll look at what she wants
or she'll try and get you to, she'll guide you to get
to whatever [she wants]. But it's constantly asking questions
and you've got to learn not to use open ended questions,
you've got to use yes or no questions or give her options
so we've had to learn how to communicate to her.
It's very different and it's been speaking to the speech therapists
and the OTs and everyone like that.
They've helped us to communicate with Rachel.
>> Clinton: Sarah, she probably aligns and understands Rachel
better than what we do
and as sisters they get up to all sorts of nonsense
and I think I remember some stories of Rachel
ending up down the passage because she gets dragged there by her sister.
We actually thought that Rachel was hurting herself
and she even had a carpet burn on her elbow and that was because Sarah
wanted her to play in another room and decided to drag her around the house.
So they get along very well, I think Sarah as a sister
has an incredible nature, she looks after Rachel as much as what we do
and she constantly makes sure that Rachel
is included in anything we do as a family so that helps tremendously as well.
Again I think it certainly does test you as a family,
I think it brings you together, it can either destroy you
or make you stronger and certainly in our case it's made us stronger.
I think we all appreciate Rachel for who she is,
in fact one of the teachers at Sarah's school mentioned to me that Sarah
doesn't see a disabled person, she sees everybody as a person
and I think the lessons in that is that there is a person in Rachel
and that's who we appreciate and the rest of it
as tough as it is to deal with on a day-to-day basis
is worth it because you know you're dealing with a person.
>> Renee: Joy, joy, absolute joy. Definitely her smile,
she's got a very very infectious smile and she just loves life
I mean the other thing is she makes us appreciate the simple things
in life. Everyone has goals and dreams for their life
and we've come to realize that our goals and dreams are, you know
it sounds a bit cliche but happiness, just to do things together
as a family to make her happy.