There is always that moment when you doubt yourself, when you wonder if you tried for another child if everything would be okay. There is always this ray of hope that surely it can’t happen again. That it doesn’t run in your family genes so it has to be sporadic.
That research you do to check the probability of it happening again, the way you look at neighboring families and comfort yourself saying, but they only have one special child. That inner battle you do with yourself, whereby you ask yourself what if? Could it happen? Will it be worse? Will I cope?
The tears that you let slip quietly in the middle of the night because you don’t want to share your worries. You don’t want to sound like the paranoid mother that you are. You don’t want to spread the panic that is eating you alive and keeping you awake in the middle of the night.
You finally convince yourself that it will be okay. Surely God can’t be unfair twice .. Surely he must understand how hard it is for you just to be on this journey .. Either way you have prayed. You are a good parent, You are a good person. It can’t surely happen again.
Soon you have a baby on the way. The doubt and panic is overridden by the growth of the baby bump. The doctors are on it as well, good news all round. You keep thanking your lucky stars (or whatever you looked for up in the sky) for being kind, for listening to your midnight tears.
Baby is born and all seems well and dandy till she can’t hit her milestones. But then again how could you know she wasn’t? Her brother didn’t and so you don’t know what is norm. You tell yourself she is just being slow .. She will catch up. You unwillingly take her to the doctors .. How can you not? It is now in your family .. Not like before where you never had such a case.
The doctor doesn’t even have to tell you the results .. You can see it in his eyes. You can tell that all is not going to be okay. You hold your baby tighter as if it will blow away the looming news. You can’t help the tears streaming down your face, the anger that is steadily building up. How? How can it be happening again?
You wonder how you will able to storm the weather again. It was harsh the first time, surely how will you do it again, and with double the wind. You find yourself spiraling out of control. All the ‘measures’ you’d told yourself you’d take if it happened again don’t seem apt. They even don’t come close to anything you’d have imagined.
They say the eye of the storm is usually the calmest .. Once in a while you find yourself in there. When life seems to have forgotten you and given you a break. Just when you begin to get used to it, you get strewn outwards … Back to the spiral of it all.
Whether or not it worked as your wished (in this case it definitely didn’t), whether or not your faith in the skies have faltered or not, what remains constant is the fact that you now have more than one special needs child. You now have to live that journey twice. You still love them to death. That is the constant.
For some the family lineage may end there .. For others they are blessed with a stronger heart and may attempt again for more kids ..
Wherever category it is that you fall under, it doesn’t matter. You ultimately decide whether you are going to cash in your chips or gamble again. The fact that you gambled in the first place is what matters. The fact that you are proud of your winnings (coz everyone wins) makes all the difference.
Enjoy it!!
Written by @cmutena