Did I do it Backwards?

My mom occasionally will tag me in these posts where a mother with an autistic son makes "vlogs" during the week, and occasionally they make me cry. Remember, I am EXTREMELY prideful, especially when it comes to raising the coolest toddler ever. However, when I listened to this latest video while trying to fold my laundry as quickly as possible before Avery ate the dog food, or cleared the counter, or locked herself in the dog cage- I was in tears. TEARS! I rarely cry. (Except for don't ask my husband, he might say otherwise.) The reason for the tears was that this mom who is usually pretty relatable to me was touching a little TOO much on a topic that I spent a whole 9 months trying REALLY hard to not think about.

We got Avery two months before finding out that I was pregnant with Oliver. So we had to buckle up, life was about to kick it into overdrive! Having a biological child with autism has always seemed daunting and of course I fear for Oliver now more than ever. That being said, to the mommies with autistic bio-kids, you are awesome! I often felt like I was cheating, like even though Avery has autism, I technically chose it, right? Like, it would be different if Oliver ended up autistic, earth-shattering for sure. Don't ask me how it would be different, it just would.

Disclaimer- we did NOT know that Avery was autistic when she was placed into our home, I don't know why I feel like I need to put that out there, probably because like we discussed earlier, I am a prideful person. In fact, it took a year to figure it out.

At this point, Avery is OURS. She is a part of our family, but lets get it right. If Avery had already had a diagnosis on paper pre-placement, would we have taken her in? Im going to be honest, probably not. When you get a call for a placement from DHS, they let you know the age (which is ALMOST always correct,) the gender, and any kind of medical needs (which is almost always wrong.) However, we did receive many calls between placements that we turned down for one reason or another. One big reason was a medical need that we did not think that we could facilitate with our schedules. If they would have called us for a 16 month old girl who is autistic with some self-harming behaviors, there would have been no question. On the the next!

MY GOODNESS what we would have been missing out on!

God has pretty awesome timing.

Finally to the reason for the tears (sorry for the delay.) When I was pregnant we put a deadline on Avery. What I mean by that was that we told DHS that she would need a new placement three months before Oliver was born. That three months turned into two- two to one- and then there was NO WAY she was going anywhere, we loved her too much!

This next part is going to sound harsh and mean probably (and also selfish, remember, pride.) I genuinely felt robbed of my first pregnancy. Its supposed to be all exciting and calm and this awesome Instagram-worthy 9 months and blah blah blah. I definitely had those warm fuzzy exciting moments, but I was also constantly busy with doctors appointments, literally sweating from changing diapers while I was as big as a semi-truck, and somehow still had no idea how to raise a baby, even though I would soon have TWO kids!

My visions of all of the fun things that you do as a new mommy were all warped. To get out of the house and have a successful trip with Avery is hard you guys, I mean HARD. So I feared that I would never get to take Oliver anywhere. But wait, is that fair to him? Dude, for nine months straight I had this huge looming black hole of unknowns in the corner of my brain. Would Oliver's quality of life be any different because we decided to take in someone else's kid before having our own? Especially one who has special needs? Now flash forward to high school, will he have to protect her? Will he want to? When she is having her meltdowns which i'm sure will be monumental as she gets bigger, will he feel the need to lock himself in his room just to get away from all of the craziness happening in the rest of the house? Probably.

Tears, guys, tears. As I listened to this lady talk about how people would ask if her son is excited to have a little brother or sister, she had to decide whether or not to just get the conversation over with and say "Yeah, so excited!," or be honest and say, "He doesn't really understand."

Honestly, I don't think Avery even knew I was pregnant, Oliver was just here one day, like magic. She is probably secretly hoping he will leave someday. So did I do it backwards? Depends on who you ask. Being pregnant with a little autistic gremlin running around was not easy, but something I don't regret, if we would have said "No" on one simple six minute phone call, our lives would be completely different.

Remember, God has awesome timing.