the three children thing

Resolution update:

Pumping went nowhere. I returned the pump and gave away the herbs, tea and balm. Life goes on with bottles.

Blogroll: I might get there one of these days. ;)

Three children: OK, here's where the urge was coming from. One, T is a stellar older brother. He cannot wait until he and E can share a room and a bed. He comes into our room every morning and I'm now pretty much chopped liver... he wants to check on his brother. If E's still sleeping, THEN maybe he'll deign to cuddle with me. He likes to play with him, build "nests" for them (arrange the comforter into a circle around them) and is very concerned if I am around and E is not. A good example of that is the morning that I picked T up from school and took E into the school in his bucket seat due to the cold. Because it's so crowded at pick-up time, I left E sleeping in his seat in the hall. When I came in to greet T, he started looking all over my body for E - under my coat, on my back... and was very concerned that he didn't seem to be there.

Secondly, much of the urge comes out of concern for E in the future when we are no longer around. I know that it's fully possible that he will live on his own with a job that pays his bills, and will be eligible for health care through the federal government. He'll probably have someone through an organization who will help him with paperwork and other things that he comes across; it's not all going to rest on us as his family. He may live and work in a wonderful community like a Camphill Village or Community Homestead. But still, regardless of his level of independence, I think about the support I would like him to have, and I would like to see his family giving him that support more than an organization like PACER or ARC.

I have dismissed the idea in my head that T will consider his little brother a 'burden' when they are older. I would guess that it is more likely that T will see him as a responsibility, and will be someone for E to come to with questions and when he needs support. When it comes to support within a family, I have learned this year that two supports are better than one.

Jo has been dealing with her mother this year, and she's an only child. This means that all of the discussion about what her mom needs, all of the decompression, all of the unhappiness falls to me as her wife. I'm not upset about this, or think it's bad. She also shares a lot with her mom's friend who lives close by Jo's mom (whom Jo refers to as her aunt) and, frankly, if she and her aunt didn't have each other, they'd both be in therapy.

Still, whenever there's something up with my mom, I have my sister. Thankfully, there hasn't been much up with my mom, knock on wood, but I know that I could rely on my sister if something did happen, and we would be there for each other.

I know that although society has become more welcoming of people with DS than it used to be, there will still be plenty of less-than-rosy moments for T as a sibling to a person with DS. I'm guessing that there will be many times when T locks himself into his room, by himself, and thinks "why do I have to have a retard for a brother?" while staring at the ceiling. Hopefully these will be balanced out by pride in his little brother's accomplishments and a simple, heart-filling brotherly love. On a far different plane, he may be in a position later in life when he has to make decisions about or for his brother, such as medical care or finances, which he may not resent, but which may weigh heavily on him nonetheless. It just seems to me that it would be a relief to him to be able to pick up the phone and call his little brother or sister and just share with another person who is equally emotionally invested in the situation.

Two things I have concluded this urge is definitely NOT about:

1. The urge to have two "normal" children, as if E is a reject. Not.
2. The urge to be pregnant and give birth again. Pregnancy is not as thrilling when you have other children to chase, and I'm over trying to have my VBAC.

Another thing I know: there's no guarantee that my third kid wouldn't be disabled themselves, that they wouldn't end up in jail, or that they wouldn't hate their siblings and go off forever, never to be heard from again. However, on the second and third points, I can hope that a solid upbringing and lots of love would help them avoid such an adulthood. And as to the third, well, there's no guarantee about anything, is there? - we might all be in a car crash tomorrow, T might try skydiving and his parachute might not open, or E might die before all of us. So in my brain I've pushed the maybes and mights aside and just considered the situation assuming that we're all going to continue living our lives.

Considering adoption? I have. I have also seen how much it costs. While Jo was stuck with me, the pregnant grouch, for 9 months, I have to admit: the only part about having E that we had to pay for was the sperm. That has to be taken into consideration as well as the zero-population-growth thing.

So there you have it. Two out of three resolutions tended to. I am sure more thinking about this three kid thing will take place.