With a Special Needs Child at Home

Translated…

After I’d read the article, “An Angel, Never-to-Be Born”, it’d made me cry, I’d felt very empathetic toward the writer’s situation, and I’d started relating to the parents with a special needs child at home.

A little over six years ago, I’d married, got pregnant with a son, my in-laws were beyond joyous.  My son is active and moving all the time, but, we’d slowly discovered, that he seemed to be especially sensitive toward sounds.  In the early mornings of the summers, when he’d heard the birds chirp, he’d started crying; as the northeast wind came in the winters, he couldn’t fall asleep easily, tossed and turns; as he’d heard any kind of sounds being broadcasted, he’d start throwing a hissy fit…other than that, as he’d done something wrong, made the adults angry, and we’d yelled at him, it’s, as if, he’s totally oblivious, and kept at his ways.  Sometimes, we’d be talking to him, and, there’s that blank facial expression on him, as it, nothing was happening.

Until he was three-and-a-half years old, his kindergarten teacher noticed something wasn’t quite right with him, suggested that we take him to the hospital for a check, and, the SHOCKING news—he was, autistic.  I was totally in disbelief, my son would smile at, and talk to me!

We’d started him on an assortment of treatment, but, the elders didn’t know the entire thing, and had a differences of opinion on the way we were teaching our son, and, as my husband and I disagreed more on things, our son’s emotional developmental delays became more, and more apparent too.  And, I’d lost it at work a couple of times.

Gladly, my husband is filled with a strong sense of responsibility, other than the treatment methods that the hospitals provided us with, he’d sought out ways, not only placing my son in horse therapy and light therapy, changed his diets to gluten free, he’d bought an assortment of exercise equipment too, rollerblades, to try to teach my son to focus more.  Every single night, he’d read with my son, put up great amount of time, energy, as well as money too.  When the nights got quieter, I’d asked my husband if he was tired, the normally practical and unemotional man started muffling, “Because I’m a dad, I must take responsibility, because we had him, he’s only mildly autistic, there’s still a chance for him to be better adapted to the world; if I don’t train him well, then, I wouldn’t do right by him!”

Last year, I was pregnant with my second child, other than the amniocentesis, we’d gotten the extra genetic test.  I’d asked my husband, if it’s okay, for me to abort, if this child is abnormal, he’d nodded in silence.  A short while after my first prenatal exam, my cell started ringing, the nurse stated that there’s a duplicate on our daughter’s fifteenth chromosome, wanted us to get a blood draw, to make sure.  I’d cried all the way home, gladly, the results showed, that it was, hereditary, not something that I did or didn’t do, but, throughout my pregnancy, I was, very uneasy.  And now, my daughter is already six months old, healthy, and bouncy, and I’m more than grateful.

I’d often read up on the stories of other moms who’d miscarried or are infertile, my heart goes out to them, but, the hardships of raising a child with special needs, you can’t sum up in a matter of few short sentences, and, there are many cases where the husband or the wife couldn’t put up with the outside noises and left too.  I just hope, that this article can help soothe the writer of the article on the paper awhile ago.

It would be hard, to raise a child, who’s “normal” (whatever THAT means???), so, imagine how much more hardships would come to the parents, with special needs children in their homes.  And yet, this pair of parents are, very positive, because they really do love their son, very much.