Community Submission by: Kelda York Kelda York is married with three children and lives in NH. She is a pre-school teacher, an avid cook, and enjoys a good novel. My son has always kept us on our toes, even before he was born. There were concerns over a heart arrhythmia, which was detected at 16 weeks of gestation. He decided to join us 6 weeks early and spent weeks in the NICU to fix some lung development issues (his heart
I used to think that when people had children with severe disabilities, it would be something detected in the womb, or shortly after birth—that it would be obvious that something was wrong. But this was not at all the case with our son, Asa. Asa is the third of three boys. He was born after a mere two hours of labor, a big healthy baby weighing 10lbs exactly. I remember a hospital staff member saying, “Congratulations—you have a toddler!” For
I am not going to sugar coat it. No one in this world loves my son more than me. No one in this world gets hurt by my son more than me. He pulls my hair, sometimes clumps in his hand. He kicks me, punches, and throws his body with no care forcing me to strain my muscles to the limits while also covering me in bruises. But the thing he does that has caused me the most pain and
Community Submission by: Anonymous I recently watched the movie “Lady Bird.” If you haven’t seen it, it’s the story of the relationship between a rebellious teen and her mother. I wouldn’t have normally resonated with this type of plot, but recently, my 11-year son and his hormones have been ruining my life (hormones + autism = horrible combination). So when the mother, played expertly by Laurie Metcalf, basically kicked her daughter out of the house, I was cheering from afar!
Community Submission by: Avis Avis is the mother of three boys: the older two are typically-developed, and her youngest, Bennett, has Phelan-McDermid Syndrome with autism. She is also a wife and a dentist. On June 16th, 2020, my 6-year-old son Bennett ran out of the house and jumped the fence. By the time we realized he wasn’t hiding or avoiding us, we could NOT find him. We live on a corner and we weren’t sure which direction he ran. We
