Daddy Blog 15/05/09

Mama Bean is at almost 18 weeks and today it finally hit me that we don’t really have to worry about a miscarriage any more. Sure the possibility is still there, but for the first 3 months it was a very real possibility and a little fear that was always sitting just under the surface.

Today that fear left me. It flew away like a little bird, and it is really nice to not have that anxiety and stress.

A couple of weeks ago, Mama Bean went in for some blood work that tests for spina bifida and downs. Having a child with physical or mental disabilities is something that has always scared me, and I was never really sure how I would deal with it were that to happen. (We have since received results saying the chances of both are 1/18,000 and 1/32,000)

I’m not unfamiliar with kids and mental disabilities. Growing up in Yellowknife, there seemed to be an inordinate amount of kids with FAS, and I knew a number of families with autistic kids, along with the standard array of students in school with various mental disabilities. These kids always made me uncomfortable, and I never really knew how to act around them. I don’t think there was any particular reason for this attitude, I think it was because I never really associated with them or had friends/family friends with people with disabilities. Lately though, my attitudes about having a child with a disability are slowly starting to change.

There is a couple at our church that have an autistic son in his late teens and watching them has really started to eat away at those previously held fears. When I watch them with him, I see this unwavering love and patience. They love him in a way that I have never understood, and didn’t see very often growing up. Maybe it is because being a dad is in my very near future, or maybe that I am finally old enough to understand that kind of love, but my attitudes are really starting to change. Watching how they love him, how they treat him, just everything about the way they raise him. It just blows my mind, and makes me realize that it wouldn’t be the end of the world to have that happen. There are a lot of people out there that love and raise children with disabilities, and I can imagine that it must be really difficult, but from watching these two, I realize that your world doesn’t end; it goes in a different direction.

I think my spiritual growth is also having a big impact on this attitude change. Accepting that I can’t control absolutely everything, and having faith that I will be able to handle anything that life throws my way because He will never allow us to be tested beyond what we can handle. Now that might sound really cliché, but those words bring me peace. And it’s easy to say things like that when I’m not in a time of tribulation, but I like to think that I’ll be able to keep this faith through the tough times that inevitably come in life.

It is nice to have this improving attitude as it definitely lowers some of the stress and anxiety of having a child.