When you have so many bad days in a row, you can’t help but feel a bit sad some nights, wondering what your future will look like, knowing it’s not going to get any easier.
Driving home from a gender reveal shindig tonight, after hearing people shout “Team Healthy Baby” I found myself even more sad. I mean, I don’t wish an unhealthy child on anyone, but really, when people say things like “as long as the baby is healthy…” what are you going to do if you get an unhealthy one?
I guarantee you won’t love them any less. Chances are you will love them harder and fiercer than you ever imagined to be possible.
But you may still find yourself driving home from social gatherings, phoning a friend to ask questions like “will I ever be the same? Will I ever not feel all the feels that I feel on a daily basis? Will I ever feel like my old self ever again?”
In the end, no matter what your situation, parenthood changes you. Special needs parenthood really changes you. Special needs, life threatening condition parenthood straight up punches you in the gut and turns you into an entirely new person.
So on the bad days, when you feel sad (like I have for the last few days), when you feel like a shell of your old self who is just so damn tired, anxious and overwhelmed… you remember that life without your little super hero would be much, much worse.
And you keep up the fighting, you keep up the therapies, you keep up the treatments, you keep up the appointments, you keep up the insurance arguments, you keep up the medications, the management, the to-do lists, the stress, the hand sanitizing, the safe bubble, the prayers.
You just keep up.
Because you don’t have another choice.
Then you drink wine at 10pm in bed while eating an excessive number of Christmas cookies and watching reality television. Because this form of parenting that was in the cards for me, it’s raw and it stings.
And Christmas cookies help just a tiny bit.
