The Blessing I Might Not Have Had

One of my favorite blogs is written by the mother of one autistic child and one neurotypical child.  She is a profoundly insightful writer and expresses a lot of things that many of the rest of us with 'different' children feel or think but can't manage to put into words so coherently.  Today's post was no exception.  It's entitled "Ask Me No Questions: On The Child I'll Never Have" and discusses why she and her husband chose not to have more children (and whether it is ever an appropriate question to ask of anyone in the first place.)

I did leave a comment on her site, but felt strongly enough about what I wrote there to decide that it was worth a post here as well.

As more frequent readers know, our older son is neurotypical.  A happy, easygoing child who is, if anything, far ahead on most curves.  Our younger is not.  A handful of diagnoses may potentially apply, but from a practical standpoint, he has significant difficulty processing language, some social challenges, and the almost total inability to sit still.  He also has a very hard head, but I think that is a separate issue!  We didn't fully realize how profound his challenges were until he was three (the lesson there is to listen to your gut and not your pediatrician in case of conflict.)  At any rate, our third child was already in the picture by the time we really understood what we were facing.  I had wanted a girl, since we already had the two boys, and on the third try we were blessed with one.  But to be completely honest, I don't think I would have ever had a third child had we known in time what we were already in for with the second one.

That said, our youngest has been the absolute best thing that ever happened to her 'different' brother.  She refuses to let him go off by himself.  She drags him into games and conversations and interactions.  Very precocious herself (but in a completely different way from our eldest), she quickly caught up to his level of development and the two have progressed together, with her helping him with his language and behavior and serving as a peer for modeling purposes, since they are very close in age.  Not that they don't fight sometimes: they absolutely do, but even a fight is a form of social interaction requiring behaving according to rules and the construction of sentences!  And this little girl loves both of her brothers to distraction, anyway.

She is my angel: sweet, loving and full of joy.  She has her moments, as all kids do, but I cannot envision my life without the sunshine that she brings to it, and I am beyond grateful for all that we didn't know when she was born.  A blessing, indeed.