Day #184

I am the luckiest mom in the world and I know it!

It is all a matter of perspective, strength, and unconditional love. Sadly some parents who were blessed with children do not have these qualities and others who want nothing more in this life then to be parents but cannot have these qualities in abundance. Three instances brought this to mind for me and here they are:

#1: While at prompt care the other day I got to talking with a nurse about my girls, she remembered Maeve from a previous visit, and when the attending doctor overheard that they have autism her first reaction was to tell me "oh, I am so sorry." Why? Why would you be sorry for me when I was given these two beautiful daughters to wrap my world around?

#2: While waiting for my ride at the store this morning with the girls in the cart I met a nice young man who came over to me and had to tell me how lucky I was to have kids and how adorable they were. I came to find out that he and his lady had split up when they wanted to conceive children and found out through testing that he could not. He was so genuine and I felt his sadness.

#3: I just finished reading a confession post and comments through an autism site and the father was saying how he loved his son but couldn't deal with his behaviors any longer and were looking for residential placement so that they could alleviate the stress from their lives. A comment on the post was from a woman who said she could totally understand what he was saying and that she has a son with autism and cannot cope with him any longer either. Cope? These are your children, your blood, you don't just "cope" with them and when you cannot just toss them away to a system that will treat them like a dog in a boarding facility.

I don't understand how so many people cannot wrap their heads around their child's disability and get over it, work through it, live with and love it. It makes me sick to think that there are children of all ages out there with disabilities whose families view them as a burden. Maybe I am just cut from a different cloth but I would sooner die first then give up on my girls, it just isn't going to happen.