I've tried going back to work. I used to work hard. I loved my career. I joke with my husband that if I hadn't given up my career that I would have never gotten married and definitely wouldn't have stopped for children. But before you say, "You choose to quit." I didn't. I had a medical condition that precluded my job effectiveness. I was also told if I wanted to have children I should. At that time, my doctor said that if I wanted to have children, I needed to do it before I got worse. He didn't think I would live to be 40 (he didn't share this snippet with me then). It was my pregnancy with my son that seemed to have 'fixed' whatever was wrong. Six months in the pregnancy my heart was totally normal. After over five years of having a mystery heart problem, it just stopped being broken. No one knows why. But by then, I was committed to my son.
I am a stay-at-home mom because I choose to make my children my first priority. My children have Asperger's. I am an Aspie Mama. Very proud. I may make off-color jokes in the upcoming posts, but trust me, I, by no means, think that the epidemic is funny. I don't think those things my children struggle with are to be taken lightly. I do believe that you have to laugh or spend your life in the dark. The things my children do are wonderful. Every day with them is a blessing and every day they embark on a challenging adventure that I cannot fathom how hard it must be. So, I know, anyone can post comments and snipe, but until you have stood a day in my shoes, you are the ones that need to reevaluate your judgements.
Like I said before, I miss working. However, a typical week in our house consists of five days a week of ABA therapy, three hours, every evening. Usually there's two doctor's appointments on a slow week. Sometimes, I'm running two doctor's appointments a day. Drives are usually over an hour. Then there's the typical household concerns. Groceries, laundry, meals, and all that. I seriously admire parents that are able to work and do it all.
Did I know I would have "special" children when I first got pregnant? No. I was going to see them through the toddler years while I went back to school. My son was three weeks old when he needed surgery. That was scary. The surgery was simple but the doctors were concerned he wouldn't make it through the anesthesia. We knew he would need another surgery (ended up being two). So, I dropped out of school. These were 'minor' surgeries. Minor being that they didn't involve the heart. Never is watching your baby go through this minor.
When my son was nine months old, I would sit around with other moms with like-aged babies. I'd hear them throw out stories on their brainiacs. Future Einsteins. I was so enamored with my boy, but I wasn't about to start bragging on what I thought were typical baby happenings. Jane might say her son started talking. I wouldn't say, "Really?! Just talking? My boy is saying his alphabet and he's nine months old." I didn't because Jane's son was throwing a ball and mine could barely walk in a straight line without tripping. I figured everyone has their strengths. I didn't know that babies could like cartoons and usually didn't become obsessed with the ticker on the Bloomberg Channel instead.
It wasn't until I had our daughter that the differences started to become glaring. The irony is that we thought there was something wrong with our daughter. Why is she not talking by four months? Why doesn't she like letters at six months? What is wrong? However, our daughter screamed all the time. Colic. She screamed 20 hours a day. She screamed until she sweat. She screamed until she was hoarse. That was sometimes a relief for me. We changed formulas. We went to doctor after doctor.
I have to back it up a little bit. When my daughter was three weeks old, she, too, needed the same surgery. The blessing was this time the doctors listened to me and she didn't get nearly as sick as my son. Her surgery went with little worry.
When my daughter was two, she was still screaming. Now, she would scream and bite until she shook. Usually her brother. By this point, both children were having problems with speech. My daughter was barely saying one or two word sentences at two. My son would say one word and roll his tongue for the rest of the sentence, waving his expressive hands like he was having a full blown conversation. Each had a strength and a weakness, like puzzles pieces that fit together. One day my son would help my daughter with talking. The next my daughter would do a simple fine motor task for my son. They became closer, but the world moved further from their island.
Oh man, those first years were a bear. My husband and I were at odds. We even separated for two months under the stress. Never did we know that things were supposed to be some other way. We blamed ourselves, our extended family, his job, each other....just everything in general. Life was hard. And home life was close to nuclear. It's never easy starting a family when you had been two career people that worked out how it's all supposed to be on paper with a "plan." Oh-My-Gosh-Becky!!!! That PLAN! We were so naive.
And through it all, life rolled on. Doodles (I'm not going to use their names) screamed for nearly four years!!!! Boogs...well, there isn't quite one way to describe him...but his differences became further and further from what a non-neurologically-challenged (I HATE the word normal) boy should be. The main directive of our PLAN became less of a business mission statement. It's evolved into a more zen idea of enjoying the little things and taking it one day at a time. Listening, even when there's no words that describe it, has become habit. We live in an amazing world and our children are bringing new light into the obscure. We thought we knew it all and every day they teach us something new.
So, in the upcoming posts, know that I am like generations of parents before me, a completely human parent, prone to mistakes. I'm going to fail in some things. But I will always succeed in loving my children to a fault.
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