Everyone loves to share their pregnancy and birth stories…right? How many times have you thought about those nine months, what you ate, how much or little you exercised…or what about pre conception? Did you drink alcohol? Did your partner drink? As a mom with a special needs child, I can tell you that I have lost count how many times I have thought about, analyzed, criticized, guilted about all the possible things I could have done to cause this child to not be “perfect”. The truth is I loved being pregnant! I didn’t drink, I ate normally, I went to my prenatal doctor appointments, I took care of myself and my baby. And she grew and developed normally for those nine months. It was miraculous and amazing!
Then there is that miracle of actually giving birth. Jessica was my first child. I was 24 years old. I had gone to all of my birthing classes, bag was packed, music was picked out and I had a birth plan. I was ready! Ha! 11 hours of labor (not bad by some accounts), but contractions were overlapping and I was not getting a break. So, the doctor offered Demerol. In that state of labor, I would have agreed to anything… and I did (not in my birth plan). Two doses…and then…”the baby is not responding”…my heart stops. The doctor then shifts to epidural. I loved the epidural! Just enough to alleviate the pain but not so much that I couldn’t be present and experience this miracle. This little bundle of black hair and big beautiful eyes…love at first sight. But I really didn’t get to lay eyes on her until hours after she was born. I was rushed down to surgery because the placenta had not released. I just remember someone reminding me to breathe as I was coming out of the anesthesia.
If you think I haven’t gone over this a thousand times, you would be wrong. What if I had done the epidural from the start? What if I just endured the contractions without any drug? Did my inability to hold her and bond right at birth hinder her development? So many questions! And no clear answers. I still have moments to this day of self blame, guilt of the “what if…”.
I know that anyone who has a special needs child (no matter what the needs), experiences these questions and grief over not having the perfect child they imagined they would have. You know, those oh so familiar stages: denial, bargaining, depression, anger and acceptance. We all had to go through it, it is the nature of loss (the loss of what we had dreamed it would be like, the loss of the things that could have been…) But here is the deal, these kids are perfect! They are exactly as they were meant to be! I would not change one thing about my Jessy. And that is the acceptance part of the whole process!
Let’s do our own unofficial research. Share your own birth story. Let’s hear it!
Being Jessica's Mom: Growing up on the Autistic Spectrum 