One of the amazing things about having a child with differences is the community of support available. The hand specialist gave us a sheet with about 10 websites listed that she recommended we check out for support. All of these websites have community support pages. And the community support pages link to other pages and so on and so on. My facebook news feed has all the regular news of my friends and people I went to high school with along with inspirational messages and requests for prayers. It is fantastic!
One of these groups is a very private yahoo group limited to parents of kids with limb differences or kids with limb differences. I love this group. But, I need to set up a filter in gmail to put all these in a folder because sometimes the posts get to be a little much filling up my inbox (okay, that's done)! One of the posts recently was about staring. A new mom wrote in how she feels the need to "explain" her child to everyone she runs into on the street, which is ridiculous and also awkward for everyone. I do not really relate to this as I honestly forget sometimes that my baby even has a limb difference and then remember when people give me that "aww, poor thing, cute baby" smile/grimace thing. But then I went to a friend's house for her child's birthday party and none of the adults asked (one kid did and we explained it very quickly). After leaving the party, I felt a little strange because no one had asked. It was obvious as the baby was wearing short sleeves. Maybe no one asked because they did not want to be rude, maybe because they already knew everything from my friend, but whatever the reason I still felt a little awkward. So now I understand this new mom's desire to explain. If you just put it out there, you do not have to wonder what people think or know. I will not start explaining everywhere I go, but I know I will think about it more than I did up until now. I am feeling apprehensive about taking the baby to work next week because I do not know how many people already know (some I've told, some I'm sure heard through the grapevine). I do not know if I will be faced with a ton of questions or with no questions and I do not know which I prefer.
All this to say, my biggest issue with this aspect of my life is the emotional one. I hope I am emotionally strong enough to handle everything that comes our way, I hope I am emotionally tough enough to help my baby handle everything, but I just do not know how it will go. And those worries are the things that keep me up at night.
Thanks for listening!
~Erin
You are the emotionally strongest person I know and I absolutely know you are tough enough to handle everything that will come yours and Maggie's way. Plus, if you ever want to break down you have siblings and friends that would be there in a minute to drink coffee (or booze) with you and listen... or in my case listen and cry with you. :) Love you!
ReplyDeleteYou are amazing. Your husband is amazing. You're inspirational and I think if you have some emotional set backs at ANI think its perfectly normal.
ReplyDeleteI think no one asked at the party because either they didn't see/know about it or because they already did (and have prayed for you, baby and family)and didn't feel the need to talk about it to just talk about it. With my Mom and her twenty years of doing school, she saw all sorts of children from limb differences, several children that didn't have a defined gender, children without eyes, etc., I think her belief is what a child thinks of it. Its apart of her, but its not WHO she is. I don't know if you feel that way, but I don't think its a unhealthy way of looking at it.
I'm glad my son asked. It was a bit awkward for me because I knew he would one day because children don't have filters. I didn't want you to be uncomfortable. However, I think you explained it beautifully. I hope I explained it okay being caught off guard by the timing of his question. Your sweet girl is a special gift from God just like all babies are. It was also his true introduction to her in a way. Before that he was busy running with the other girls. Now he met her and wants to be friends with her. He wanted to see her so badly during the baptism just to see her face and say hi. He sees her as a new friend and I find that adorable. He asked me when can she come play with him and his sister.
I think you're great and I will always be here for you. Like Miss Lulu said I'm here to listen and drink tea/soda ( you know how I feel about coffee) or booze it up since neither of us are pregos.
Love you lots!
*for some reason "all I" got replaced with "ANI"...its not some weird abbreviation
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