"Where design and motherhood and intersect." That's the tagline for DesignMom, one of the internet's most intriguing, savvy blog-enterprises and blog owners–Gabrielle Blair. She's a designer and mother of six–the youngest just reaching the one year mark of life. I began reading DesignMom long before the brood of eight moved to France for the year, which enhanced the blog's already exceptional eye-candy. When Blair was pregnant with her latest, she featured birth stories of readers. Long ago, I snagged the following, which I'm publishing excerpts from here on autism/disAbility Wednesday. I believe many of you readers will resonate with the themes of courage and strength that us special needs mothers must call upon for our journey.
Pregnancy Story from Chelsey Paul, via DesignMom.
[…]"My biggest fear was having a premature child, little did I know I was about to start worrying about much more. We went in for our 20-week ultrasound and the technician began and then she suddenly stopped. My instinct immediately told me something was wrong and she mentioned needing to get the doctor before we switched over to 3D. All the things I didn’t want for my child ran through my head, missing organs, four legs, and worse dead. When my doctor came in he said, “Well we’ve got good news and we’ve got bad, good news it’s a boy and he’s growing well and has ten fingers and toes…bad news, he’ll be born with a cleft lip and we are not sure about the palette.” I sat in silence. What the hell is a cleft lip? Where do I learn more? What do I do? What does this mean? I made the mistake of Googling “cleft lip” and made myself sick for days.
"The problem I ran into was finding accurate, solid information on what to do , what to prepare for. How will feed this child? What should I get? I let anxiety get the best of me. So I went to my blog and wrote this letter to him:
“'I vow, to my son, from this post on to be stronger. To be the mother he needs me to be and that I need me to be. This isn’t the end of the world, this is the beginning of the beautiful life of my son. Things won’t “look” as I had hoped (but that is me being vain) we will struggle and I will cry more (for the good and bad times). But I vow to my son that no matter what it takes I will be there and be there with a strong force driving me. I will pray everyday not only for him but for my family that this will only make us better and that we will form a great team unit. I vow, that until you are born I won’t fret as much or cry (as much) and I will enjoy every minute that you are in my womb until you are in my arms. I will be happy for you and me. I deserve that, you deserve that. I love you.
"Things are uncertain about what to expect, but the one thing I know for certain is that he is my son and I am his mother who loves him…and that is all that matters.” […] The complete story as it appeared on DesignMom here.
I love how she quickly readjusted her her expectations and saw the beauty in the different journey. Touching–you think?
