Trouble in Paradise
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: My flameworthy post of the day
I'm going to ride on Fuss's coattails and make the argument that this is like saying you shouldn't have more than one kid (if I am understanding her meaning correctly).
Because, as a parent, you'll never be able to devote your time to your kids equally and fairly if you have more than one, regardless of special needs.
And also, Kuus, you probably know genetics better than I do (being in a science field), but having more children does not give you a greater chance of passing on faulty genetics which can lead to defiencies.
The probability is the same for each and every kid you have. It's not as if it goes up the more kids you have.
Also, autism is fairly new at this point, right? I mean, we are not sure about all of the factors that cause it, correct? It might be genetics, it might be teratogens, it might be both.
Anyway, my point with autism is that we don't know at this point if it's purely genetic.
I totally understand where you're coming from. I carry cystic fibrosis. Before my X and I got married, he got tested because I was very upfront about the fact that I would not have bio children with a man that also carried CF. My cousin has the disease and it's been devastating (for him medically; for the family emotionally and financially). I totally side-eyed his parents when they had another child without doing any genetic testing (thankfully the second child is only a carrier.) No matter how financially stable you are, and no matter how much emotional support you have, having a child with a devastating illness is extremely taxing.
I do agree that there are varying levels of disability/illness, and CF is pretty high up there as far as life-changing illnesses go. I could see a parent continuing to have children with lesser illnesses/disabilities.
Some conditions, like autism, aren't that apparent until your child is older. DD was younger than 18 months old when I was pregnant with our second. If she had been autistic (or had some non-down syndrome condition), I may have thought she was just a "difficult baby."
This is relatively personal for me. My brother and his wife have a severely disabled daughter. She is 6 years old and can't walk, can't sit up on her own, can't always hold her head up, has very little control over arm movements, and has to be fed through a tube directly into her stomach. Doctors still don't have a diagnosis but they have determined that if they were to have kids again, the child would have a 25% chance of having the same problems, to a lesser or worse extent.
They are planning on getting pregnant again, and last I heard, she wouldn't want to test for it, because that would be like saying she doesn't love her current child, and in any event she wouldn't consider abortion.
I side eye this in a major way. My brother is the only one that can have a job because the sister in law (who is an amazing mom) has to take care of the kid. They need financial help from family members for things like special vans for wheelchairs, and are probably going to run out of insurance coverage before she hits puberty (her immune system is weak, so she gets sick a lot). My mom lives with them and helps a lot, but can only do so much as the child gets too big for her to pick up.
Another child, even if healthy, is going to be born into a difficult situation. I understand that they have always wanted more than one kid and what parent doesn't want to see their child's first words and first steps? But it'd be so unfair to both the current and potential future kid since they don't have the money for both, and physically the mom can't keep up. It's getting hard enough to just carry the older kid around and change her diaper - now to have to do it twice as often on less sleep and carry the older kid around while pregnant?
Is this thread dead, I just came upon it now?
What special needs is depends is highly objective. M had heart surgery as soon as we brought him home, but physically, he's healthy as can be now and just requires annual follow-ups. He has dyslexia and is dealing with a very traumatic past, which combined, require three days a week of extra tutoring and counseling, on top of us being very attuned to what he's going through. He's significantly behind socially and educationally and still having difficultly with some English-learning issues. Special needs? Not? Either way, he needs a lot of extra time, understanding, and attention from us.
Does that mean that it would be selfish for us to have another kid? by your reasoning, it shouldn't matter that we are adopting rather than having a biological kid, because it's about how much time and attention we have to give the children, and that's the same regardless of how the child came into our family.
Sometimes, I think the best thing for everyone--the special needs child, the new child to enter the family, and the parents--is for the family to grow. The love, bond, support, friendship, and life lessons are irreplaceable and might just outweigh how much undivided attention a child gets. Just because someone is "special needs" doesn't mean that he/she needs undiverted and constant support. Sometimes "special needs" just means that the child needs extra help to become as independent as possible.
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