How my hospitalised, medicated, induced birth experience healed me
When I fell pregnant with my second child, I was terrified of the same experience. I suddenly understood why women would choose to birth at home over a hospital, although this wasn’t an option for me. I did everything in my power to gain knowledge and make decisions about my birth before choices could be made for me. Even though I was birthing in the hospital again, I hoped for this to be the birth I wanted with the elements that were important to me. However, my baby had other plans.
I am the parent of a weird kid, and I know I’m not alone
Life with a weird kid is isolating. You spend a lot of time tamping down that parental anxiety when your kid is freaking out and it seems like all the other kids are sitting nicely and cooperating. You explain over and over that your kid just doesn’t like circle time or story time or most organized activities. I’ve learned over time to respect my son and the way he functions, and there are a lot of activities we simply cannot do because he can’t handle them. I’ve learned that the reason it seems like all the other kids can cope is that the parents with the weird kids are staying home. I’ve felt completely and utterly alone as seemingly everyone else went around with their perfectly normal, average kid.
17 things The Princess Bride taught me about parenting children with autism
Fans of The Princess Bride will love this list of 17 ways the film has helped her parent children with autism from Bec, author of the blog Snagglebox. Bec has a fifteen-year-old and a twelve-year-old son who both have autism, and has been able to use lessons from the family fave in her favor.
Our child’s medical condition led us to unexpectedly become Attachment Parents
I went in to parenthood prepared. I had a decent amount of baby experience and figured I was as ready as someone can be to have your life up-ended by a tiny human. My husband and I discussed cloth diapering (we wanted to try it), sleeping arrangements (pack-n-play and crib only) and birth plans (unmedicated hospital birth with a doula). I knew that all of our plans needed some degree of flexibility as we figured out what worked best for us. Then our fuss-a-saurus, E, was born.
How beating up a sack of potatoes helped me deal with my father’s illness
My mom spoke in a tight, scared voice as she told me Papa was being airlifted from their small town to the capital city where I lived. His heart condition had triggered acute kidney failure and he was in and out of consciousness, rapidly sliding closer to death. I said yes and hung up in a daze.
There is no right way to handle your child’s unexpected diagnosis
But in parenting a kid with a diagnosis you hadn’t exactly longed for, coming unraveled can be a bumpy part of the road you’re on. Sometimes, just like our kids, we go through a developmental phase of chaos and disintegration before we consolidate new skills. I didn’t enjoy it, but I don’t think I could have skipped that step. It was an important part of my developmental trajectory.
My tips for keeping life with three autistic kids simply scheduled
Having three children with high-functioning autism requires daily structure on my part. I am an organizational freak to a fault, but even I love me some “organized chaos” from time to time. My kids, however, aren’t so fond of not knowing what’s coming up or what’s going on. So I made them this scheduling area by the front door to not only keep them in the loop, but make it easy enough for me to not feel committed to some intricate details that I usually give up on after a week.
My son is more than “a heart transplant baby”
Families that experience major medical drama or have chronic conditions are all too often permanently associated with that drama. I had a friend growing up whose family was “The Car Accident Family” after several of them were permanently disabled in a serious collision. One of my friends was “The Dog Bite Girl,” and the mother of another friend was creatively dubbed “Deaf Mom.” I myself was a member of “The Kidney Family” after my mother donated my father a kidney when I was in middle school. We got pregnant, and I was all geared up to be identified as a mom, hopefully a pretty awesome one.