{"id":661089,"date":"2026-05-10T03:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T03:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/661089\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T03:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T03:48:10","slug":"love-story-love-when-you-dont-know-how-long-youve-got","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/661089\/","title":{"rendered":"Love story: Love when you don’t know how long you’ve got"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Kerrie Franc’s daughter sleeps in some mornings, she worries she might “walk into the room and find she’s not breathing.” Kerrie’s 14-year-old daughter Pippa has Williams syndrome<\/a>. It is characterised by medical problems, developmental delays and learning challenges, and distinctive facial features. Despite being in a “constant state of anxiety” for Pip’s wellbeing, 47-year-old Kerrie from Ballarat says life with her is full of joy.<\/p>\n

Whether it’s romantic, platonic, heartbreaking or surprising, our Love Story series is about love in all its forms. Share yours with us.<\/a><\/p>\n

Pip stopped growing at 28 weeks \u2014 she had intrauterine growth restriction.<\/p>\n

My obstetrician didn’t really know why, and she was born at 38 weeks, but at 2 pounds 7 ounces (1.1 kilograms).<\/p>\n

Tiny little tot.<\/p>\n

Her lungs collapsed, so we were taken to Melbourne for quite a while until she was strong enough to come back to Ballarat.<\/p>\n

We spent the first three months in and out of hospital. She was failure to thrive and there were feeding complications.<\/p>\n

I kept on saying to the doctor, “There is something not quite right. She’s not like my first daughter.”<\/p>\n

They said “No, she’s fine, it’s you, you have postnatal depression.”<\/p>\n

So they bundled me off to the mother-baby unit for two months.<\/p>\n

The nurses usually take them for the first few nights to let you get sleep, but they ended up taking her full-time overnight as they had never had a kid that cried as much as Pippa.<\/p>\n

We left and I was still saying something is wrong, but my concerns were dismissed.<\/p>\n

\"Kerrie<\/p>\n

Kerrie says Pippa is a sweet, loving child. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Finally, a paediatrician agreed to do some genetic testing. And at 15 months, Pip was diagnosed with Williams syndrome.<\/p>\n

I was angry. I was really angry they wouldn’t take my word that she was different to my first child.<\/p>\n

And not just my word, but that she was failure to thrive, still tiny, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t stop crying, wasn’t meeting development milestones.<\/p>\n

Masses of joy and love<\/p>\n

There was no joy at the beginning of Pip’s life.<\/p>\n

She’d sleep for probably two hours in a row. My husband and I would take turns rocking her in one of those old-school rockers throughout the night.<\/p>\n

And there was so much guilt. I had her big sister Tahlia, who was three, and I was trying to be there for her while also look after this kid who didn’t stop crying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It just all felt like I was never good enough, never quite there enough for everybody in the family.<\/p>\n

It’s still hectic today, there’s not a lot of sleep.<\/p>\n

I’m like a helicopter mum \u2014 always watching her \u2014 because there is no concept of danger. And she just wants to please people, so is very compliant, to a fault.<\/p>\n

But there’s masses of joy and love.<\/p>\n

Williams syndrome awareness <\/a><\/p>\n

Morgan says she often has to explain her condition to support workers and\u00a0teachers,\u00a0so\u00a0she’s using social media to raise awareness of how it affects her everyday life.<\/p>\n

Pip is developmentally about four years old, so we’re always going to have the tooth fairy and Santa and the Easter Bunny.<\/p>\n

All these magical things you get when kids are little. But I’ve got them forever.<\/p>\n

When she does reach a milestone or do something new, you know how hard it has been for her.<\/p>\n

And how long it has taken for her to achieve these things, like standing, walking, talking.<\/p>\n

It’s all that much sweeter when it happens.<\/p>\n

She is such a loving, sweet kid. She’s kind and compassionate and loves music and is always singing.<\/p>\n

\"Kerrie<\/p>\n

Kerrie says things were very difficult at the start of Pippa’s life. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Of course, it’s not always rainbows and sunshine.<\/p>\n

She gets frustrated and jealous, and all her emotions are magnified.<\/p>\n

But I wouldn’t change it.<\/p>\n

A future without my daughter<\/p>\n

I fully expect one day to walk into her room one morning and find she’s not breathing.<\/p>\n

It’s really quite difficult.<\/p>\n

I’ve got peers around me who have lost their children. And like for me, their children were their world<\/p>\n

There’s the grief of ‘What am I going do when she’s gone?’<\/p>\n

I have given my life to her forever. I’ve got no super, I’ve got no continuous employment. I’m a 47-year-old woman who has been out of the workforce for nearly 17 years.<\/p>\n

What’s my life going to be like without her?<\/p>\n

On the flip side, if she survives until adulthood, what is my life going to be like and what is her life going be like when I’m gone?<\/p>\n

I don’t want her to be a burden on her sister, but I don’t want to put her in a group home, either.<\/p>\n

She’s so innocent.<\/p>\n

The future either way is full of heartache. But you just deal with it because she’s my baby.<\/p>\n

She will always be baby.<\/p>\n

She will always be my little one who needs her mum to make the sandwiches and get her dressed and showered.<\/p>\n

She may be a woman in body, but she loves The Wiggles and Santa, and that joy overrides all the worry.<\/p>\n

Kerrie is an advocate with Carers Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Kerrie Franc’s daughter sleeps in some mornings, she worries she might “walk into the room and find…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,22424,319358,22425,7110,134,2582,17357,242789,46357,9161,319357],"class_list":["post-661089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-carer","tag-carers-australia","tag-caring","tag-disability","tag-entertainment","tag-family","tag-love","tag-love-stories","tag-motherhood","tag-parenting","tag-williams-syndrome"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}