Update (2016): Anyone reading this blog for the first time and wondering how I managed the baby years, or looking for tips or tricks that worked for me, the best blogs postings are from 2010-2014. Now that my children are older, ages 6 and 3, they are more independent and I no longer face many physical challenges in caring for them.
My hope is that this blog would encourage other people with disabilities as
they consider or are entering parenthood. Infancy was the most
difficult time for me, but it's just a short window of time, and like
many challenges in life they pass, you get through them, and hopefully
come out stronger in the end.
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(2010)
When my husband and I started talking about starting a family 2 years ago I wanted to do some research. I, naturally did a web search for disabled mothers raising children, and to my disappointment I didn’t come up with much. I wanted to learn about what it was like to go through pregnancy for someone with a physical disability. I wanted to learn about adaptive equipment out there that would make it easier for me to care for a baby. I wanted to hear about other disabled mothers’ tricks that made things easier for them. I wanted to know that someone else went through this and succeeded. I wanted personal stories.
I did find a wonderful, very helpful, encouraging book on pregnancy, “The Disabled Women’s Guide to Pregnancy and Birth” by Judith Rodgers. Also, Through the Looking Glass, is an organization for parents with disabilities. I also bought a book written by a woman whom had adopted a baby. Both her and her husband were disabled, but after my husband read it first he suggested I not read it.
I also found a blog written by a disabled woman going through her first trimester of pregnancy but it was old and was never kept up after that. I was disappointed, so I got this idea in my head that I should start a blog. That I could share my experience about pregnancy, labor and delivery, and caring for a baby as a disabled mother. I could share my challenges, my tricks, my experiences, hoping to encourage the next disabled person out there wanting to start a family.
I should have started this earlier, like when I first got pregnant, because there has been many times where I have said to myself, “I should blog about this.” But I will try to go back and capture those moments and share them.
I was reluctant about starting a blog, for many reasons that maybe some day I’ll blog about... or maybe not, mainly because I’m not a “look at me. look at me” type of person. I enjoy reading other peoples’ blogs from time to time if they are shared with me, but I don’t necessarily want my life out on display for the world to read about. So what this blog is not: It is not a blog about my daily life (my job, what I ate for dinner, the jerk who cut me off in traffic); it is not a blog about motherhood (the lack of sleep, the loads of laundry, cleaning spit up off my clothes); it is not a blog about my baby (Kiana took her first step today, Kiana is teething, Kiana is feeding herself) ; it is not a blog about being a wife; it is not a blog about my opinion, or lack there of, of the current political news; it is not my rant on this or that. (Isn’t that is what Facebook is for?) Or at least I’m going to try not to make it about all of this. Instead, I want to try to keep this blog about the uniqueness of my situation as it relates to all of these. It will be about the obstacles I face that an able-bodied person might not face when raising a child and how I overcame those obstacles.
So if anyone finds this blog to read I hope you would follow me in this journey of raising a child as a physically disabled mother. If not, I guess I’ll just have an online journal of memories.
