Dear Addie,
The number one thing I hear raising a child with special needs is, "I could never do what you do, I just don't know how you do it all!" and while this is very sweet and enduring thing to say, I promise they could do it. I don't possess special powers or thick skin - I cry, laugh, maybe cry again, mess up and sometimes get it right just like everyone else. No magic here.
"Motherhood is about raising and celebrating the child you have, not the child you thought you would have." - Joan Ryan
Becoming a mother. Something I always wanted in life, but never had a vision of what it would look like. I never had a specific age I wanted it to happen or a magic number of children I wanted to have. While I had no expectations of this vision I also was naive to the weight of the journey itself. Taking on a new identity as a mom well there's not a single book, TED talk, or person that can truly prepare you for that. It's a journey that is wildly individualized as to when or how it happens and can even evolve and change with each child you have. Motherhood is not for the weak, although there will be times you feel nothing but this, but I digress.
Eighteen years ago, we left the hospital with your big sister Clara, came home, and set her in a jungle-themed vibrating baby seat. I remember sitting back thinking "Now what?" as we just sat and stared at her, what would happen next would be the first of many "well, that happened moments" on this motherhood (or parenthood rather) journey.' You see Addie, after letting our trusty beagle outside he returned and wasted no time taking a protective role to our new family member positioning himself directly in front of the seat facing towards her but away from us. How cute was that?! A few minutes later he asked to go back outside and as odd as it was Daddy got up to let him out and while he was doing so I noticed something sitting on the floor in front of the bouncy chair...not a random sock or dog toy, but a bunny a cute but dead baby bunny. Our beloved beagle had brought in a gift for our new baby. Such a gracious boy, but ewwwwww, and if that wasn't already bad enough when we went to let him back in he had yet another one. In all the visions of just how I thought our first few moments home would be I never could've imagined this! I think it's safe to say that in my experience motherhood has been predictably unpredictable from the very start.
Fast forward to when we are two kids in, a boy and a girl, and found out we were pregnant with you! I mean no question we got this, we already had two kids how different could one more possibly be? What did I know? Insert our autism journey and every single thing I thought I knew would be second-guessed or thrown out the window completely. The real emotional rollercoaster was about to begin.
In those early days, we were given a first 100 days of autism binder that I reference so often in a joking manner, but within the first couple of pages, it enclosed a poem "Welcome to Holland" that after reading I felt to my core in this third phase of motherhood. A poem that somehow validated how different this all felt this time around.
Welcome To Holland
By: Emily Kingsley
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The flight attendant comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
Addie, a mom is something I always wanted to be and with that I guess you get the consistently predictably unpredictable journey for kicks, but it's all good because I really adore my tour guides ;)
Love you all, so very much. Thanks for giving me this amazing journey and loving me even when I'm nothing but a mess.
Love,
Mom
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