Help!

Do you have a nagging feeling that your child’s development is not quite right?  Does your doctor see areas of concern?  You may know you want help, but have no idea where to turn.  Today my goal is to give you some information to help you get started! The very first place to begin is with Child Find, www.childfindidea.org.  This website will help you obtain the contact information for your specific state. By law, each state is required to locate and evaluate every child between birth and age 21 who may need special education or early intervention services.  This evaluation …

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Welcome to Holland, by Emily Perl Kingsley

❀❀ Here is a wonderful essay by Emily Perl Kingsley.  She has given us all a wonderful snap-shot of the experience of having a child born with a disability, and allows us to feel some of the emotions that go along with it. ❀❀ When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip-to Italy.  You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans.  The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David.  The gondolas in Venice.  You may learn some handy phrases in Italian.  It is all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day …

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Growing Up Different

     Another crazy afternoon, a day in the life of me. Except this time, we had just picked up my oldest from school and she is still struggling to keep herself together. I juggle her assignments, Elijah’s off the wall energy and Tori’s victorious antics. We settle in for the evening, supper, showers, stories, and bedtime. After I get the little ones to bed, I hustle Chy into the shower. She takes longer than usual, forty five minutes later, she is out, dripping wet and her eyes hold a brokenness in them. She asks me quietly if I would …

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Uninvited Diagnosis

  She was tiny, frail and unable to meet any of her developmental milestones.  I knew her biological mom had used every drug imaginable during her pregnancy.  Nevertheless, the neurologist’s diagnosis cut through me.  Our adopted daughter would struggle through life with brain damage. Two years later, another uninvited diagnosis forced its way into my world. It came from a high-risk pregnancy doctor that rushed into the room after a longer than normal ultrasound. He dug the ultrasound wand into my swollen belly while still chewing his half eaten lunch, “Absent bladder…hernia…heart on the wrong side.  Most likely Trisomy 18. The …

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