Special Moms

Today I sat in a room full of moms with children that have special needs. Children with hearing or sight impairment, physical disabilities, cognitive delays, speech and feeding issues. I looked at each of the women and studied their faces that had smiles stretched ear to ear and watched as they laughed and talked with one another. They all seemed happy and hopeful. I kept thinking of the hours upon hours that they have invested in their children in hopes of seeing their child reach milestones or make improvement and literally caught myself on numerous occasions fighting the tears. They all seemed so strong and their burdens seemed so much greater than mine, and yet they were still pressing on and sharing with one another ideas and possibilities.

A feeding/speech therapist was there that I have heard wonders of from a friend and we were able to ask questions and the entire time I was on the edge of my seating praying and begging God to have this man share SOMETHING that would give me direction on how to help little Mickey eat. But time ran out, I had to get home to hook McKenna up to the tube and I came home without answers. The one positive, in addition to meeting amazing and strong women, is that the therapist told me to call next week and ask all my questions and he won't charge me for the call.

So next week I will call him and ask my million questions and see if he thinks there is something he can do to help McKenna before we financially invest in yet another therapist or doctor that claims he can help until he meets her and sees how complex her situation is and passes her to another person.

I am feeling very down tonight and helpless. Our pediatrician isn't on our side, our GI just wants to keep giving McKenna more and more meds, our therapists don't know what to do so they just hang out and talk or read her books and God, the one true Healer is apparently saying it's not her time to be healed yet.

So tomorrow we will be woken by retching most likely, and we will tube feed McKenna every three hours, and we will offer her food that she will ignore and refuse to eat or taste and we will hold the rag while she retches and pukes and we will play with her hair or rub her back to try to calm her, and we will debate what the next step is...we really just don't know where else to go from here. And yes...tonight I am having a pitty party.