They didn't have a special needs mother hat in my size

"There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be..." -John Lennon


I would love to talk about those first few days in the hospital after Oli was born as being beautiful and full of acceptance.  I would love to say "They told me she was blind and I immediately put on my special needs mother hat and began my new identity."  That's not exactly what happened.  I went through a lot in the first years of Oli's life to get me where I am today.  I wouldn't be doing her story justice if I just painted a pretty picture and pretended it wasn't hell.  Of course I loved her.  I've always loved her more than anything.  But that's been part of my problem.  I loved her so much but, I couldn't fix her.  I couldn't give her eyes or sight.  I couldn't take away all the hardships and pain that I knew were in her future.  I couldn't make society treat her with respect or hell, even a human being, as a special needs child.  I've had experiences with more than one doctor referring to her only as a diagnosis.  Talking to me like she was an object and telling me everything that could possibly be wrong with her and not to expect much.                                                                                          

  Lying in that hospital bed, after she was born, was absolutely the lowest part of my life.  Mostly because I am a -worst-case-scenario- kind of girl.  I can take a perfectly sunny day at the park and turn it into, an escaped convict jumps out of the bushes and kidnaps me where I spend the next 5 years locked in his basement forced to eat pickles and honey, in my mind.  That's just how my mind works.  I just wasn't ready to accept this life that had just punched me in the face.  She didn't fit into my perfect little box of what I wanted my future to look like.                                      

                     Now, let me say something about life that I learned at that moment.

 Life did not care that I had an 18 month old son at home.  Life did not care that I currently had a full time job to get back to.  Life did not care that I felt I did not deserve this.  Life did not care that I felt somehow cheated.  Life simply handed me this baby girl and said, "Ok. Here you go. Now what are you going to do?  Are you going to run away? Fight this with every fiber of your being? Or are you going to accept this and move on?"  Me being me, of course, I chose option number 2.