I don’t even know what to title this one.
Posted in Soapbox by: AlisaYesterday I was reading a blog I follow (Mommy Snark) and at the tail end of her post she said something along the lines of I urge you to read this post, “ It’s a beautiful post about a Mom falling in love with her baby – a baby much different than the one she expected.” Then she gave this link: Nella Cordelia’s Birth Story It is a SUPER long post but totally, completely worth reading. But get your tissues first. If it were me I would read it and then come back to read my comments but you do what you want. It’ll just make more sense that way.
I immediately knew I wanted to read this post. I have a deep down to the bottom of my soul fear of having a kid that is anything but 100% normal. I’m terrified that I’m not the type of mom that could love a child with a major disability. A disability that would cause me to mother in a very real and hands on way for the rest of my life. I mean for crying out loud I have this whole bipolar thing going on which takes a lot of my energy. I wonder if my kids needed more of me in a very serious way if would be able to give it to them.
The answer is absolutely, without question, with my whole heart, YES. But I didn’t discover that until I read this post. Once I realized that it was OK to grieve and feel sorrow over the life that is lost and then recover from that, I realized I could do it. I only focused on the pain of losing that ideal child and never thought of getting over it. But she did. And quickly too. I’m sure the grieving and processing time is different for everyone. Some shorter, some longer but in the end, that beautiful baby is yours. It’s just like any other baby and only wants your love (and milk and diapering skills but you know what I mean).
I even get scared that if something happens to one of my boys and he becomes seriously disabled that I would break somehow and not be able to love them anymore, but how could that possibly happen? They’re still my boys. They’re still my perfect, sweet, loving, got roots deep down into my soul boys. That’s just doubt and fear that make me think that I couldn’t take care of them. Doubt and fear have no place in love.
This post changed my life a little. I’m not dealing with anything like this in my life right now but I have walked past families in town that have a disabled kid and I have cried for them. I have literally cried in the middle of Target because their situation seems so overwhelming to me. But not anymore. That disabled kid is just like any other kid in their family. They love him/her just as much and love that they are a part of their family. They don’t look at them and see insurmountable work. I’m not down playing how hard their jobs as mom/dad must be but I will no longer look at those families the same way. Hopefully it wont scare me anymore but will delight me that a family has so much love one for another.
So it’s probably pretty obvious from this post that I have had little to no interaction with children with disabilities. I had a friend who had trouble walking but he was awesome and 100% self sufficient so I never even consider him disabled. I have had no experience with life long, need hands on care disabilities and as far as that goes what I didn’t know, scared me.
Please don’t judge me too harshly. I was never judgmental of the child or thought anything bad about the child. It was the responsibility of being that hands on mom for the rest of my life that scared me. There’s no retirement and just jetting off for the weekend on your own. There always has to be a caretaker but I would imagine with such a special, well loved child there would be a huge support circle.
Now my post has turned into a novel. I was just so touched by Nella’s story that I had to share my change of heart. My awakening to a world of possibilities outside of the realm of “normal”. The mom’s journey the night of the delivery will stay with me for the rest of my life and give me hope that all pain has an ability to be overcome and life can once again be embraced. All life. No matter what.
Here’s video that I love that also helped me understand what it means to parent a special needs child.
June 27th, 2011 at 8:37 am
I really liked reading about Nella. I think I’ve only heard the “she’s such a blessing” part of stories of those with disabled kids. Not that I really doubt that, but I just never hear about the devastation and grieving. And for some reason, hearing about the devastation makes the “she’s such a blessing” part more believable. It totally makes sense that you have to work through the grief to get to the deep love part. I’ve always been a little nervous, too about having a kid with special needs.
June 27th, 2011 at 9:07 am
We have really good friends who have a down syndrome child, and they didn’t know until after she was born that she had this affliction. We talked to them about 3 weeks after she was born (before that we knew something was going on but we didn’t know what) and when the dad told Jon that his daughter was unexpectedly born with Down Syndrome Jon responded “wow that sucks.” And this guy turned to Jon and said “Thanks so much for not telling me I need to be happy & that this is a blessing.” They were still in the grieving stage & felt that they had LITERALLY been hit by a semi truck. Of course they loved their child. But what parent doesn’t want their child to be completely healthy and ‘normal’ and to grow up to be independent & self sufficient? Its hard. Our friends aren’t grieving anymore (their child is 18 months old now) but that first bit after the child was born was just plain hard. I think its okay to say its hard, but maybe other people think they have to act like they would if everything was happening the way they expected it to? I don’t know.