TINE GREGORY AND her husband Paul seemed to have the perfect life: a young, healthy couple, in love, happily married and expecting their first baby. A trouble-free pregnancy and an easy birth and the picture was complete. With baby Frederick in their lives they were a family. But when Frederick was three months old, they noticed a small indent at the back of his head. 'We knew this wasn't right,' says Gregory. 'We went to see the doctor, had an MRI scan and our whole world collapsed.' Frederick was diagnosed with Walker Walburg syndrome - a brain, eye and muscle disorder - but the doctors couldn't say for sure how bad it was. 'It was the worst time of my life,' she says. 'At 29 I just didn't think of it as a possibility. He was our first child, our perfect and beautiful little boy. Basically, we spent the next month crying, but the good thing was we did it together.' Today, although now 10, Frederick is physically and mentally still a newborn. Sharon Glick, director of St John's Counselling Service, says that when a couple face a major tragedy, it can easily create divisiveness in the relationship. 'People see children as part of themselves. A child who is beautiful and brilliant is seen to be a good reflection of its parents.' For parents of handicapped children the situation is harder, she says. 'People feel tremendous guilt and ownership for a handicapped child. When someone dies there's a grieving process and it's reasonably finite - potent for about a year before it begins to subside. When there's a handicapped child, the grieving process doesn't have an end.' Couples in this situation have a choice between redoubling their efforts within their relationship and facing the problem as a united team, or blaming one another and falling apart. Glick says a common way of coping is to become an advocate for your particular issue or problem. This was the way for Gregory, who became involved with the Watchdog Early Learning and Development Centre, which provides a pre-school programme for developmentally delayed children. It helped her to find therapy and support for Frederick. 'Paul and I are strong - we're lucky,' Gregory says. 'But I have no doubt we've been through the very worst that you can go through as a couple. Thankfully, we pulled in the same direction. While Frederick is very much a part of our lives and we love him, we decided we were going to have another life as well.' The Gregorys believe strongly that the best way forward is to have more children and to lead as normal a life as possible. 'My life started over when I had my second child. Without him Paul and I would have been living a dead life. With just Frederick and his problems, there was nowhere to go, and we would have been spoiling three lives: mine, Paul's and Frederick's. We would have been mourning him forever.' In a society like Hong Kong, this grieving process can be compounded by the lack of openness and acceptance within the community. 'The social stigma surrounding autism in Chinese culture makes it difficult,' says Sun Yau Kwai-heung, mother of Dominic and Nichola, who both display autistic tendencies. 'I don't tell people Dominic has autistic features. I say he needs special help. To my friends, I say his social skills are poor, but I balance this by saying that he's advanced in other areas. It was even difficult to tell his grandparents. Every time I took him to Watchdog I would tell his grandmother I was taking him to a special class because his social skills were poor.' Dominic was diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorders, not otherwise specified - another term for a high functioning child with autism - when he was three-and-a-half years old. 'To begin with, we didn't understand about autism and we were at a loss about where to go for help. I'm lucky. My husband Dennis is an optimistic person and I was the one who was more worried about Dominic. He wasn't disheartened by it.' The relationship was put under more pressure when their 18-month-old daughter, Nichola, was also diagnosed with autistic features. 'We had been through this once already, and we couldn't believe it was happening to us again, but we approached it as something we had to get through together. It made us stronger as a couple. We thought: what can we do for Nichola?' Both these couples have been through situations that have sorely tested their relationships. How is it that they've managed to stay together and grow stronger, when, according to Glick, more than half of couples faced with this sort of dilemma separate? Glick says it's crucial that couples seek help from counsellors. 'We give people tools to help them better cope with their situation. We open the lines of communication and get the individuals to interact in a positive way.' Gregory and Yau both agree that the support from their partners and the community has helped them to cope with their situations. Organisations such as Watchdog offer invaluable assistance to children and parents. 'We want people to realise and remember that families like ours actually exist,' Gregory says. 'Whether local or expatriate, it doesn't matter - this sort of problem doesn't discriminate.' Parents have to tackle their problem as a team, she says. 'There are so many families where one parent won't accept that there's a problem - they're in total disagreement. Facing that is even harder than what we went through. Together you really can get through anything and, in the end, be happy.' Watchdog Early Learning and Development Centre is a charitable organisation for developmentally delayed children, and will hold its annual charity luncheon on April 20. Details and inquiries: 2521 7364