Raising four children has not been without challenges. Some experiences were eye opening in a good way and changed my perspective of parenting and other situations knocked us flat on our ass. Before I had children, I had this vision of what life would be like. I would not have kids that were screamers (haha!) and I would be patient all the time because you know they're just kids….and lest we forget the infamous, "I'm not going to plop my kids in front of the tv." I could go on, it's quite amusing. Of course all is mostly wonderful during the newborn/infant stage since they don't talk back and they usually like the person who feeds them.
As our kids grew and moved through different seasons of maturing there were difficult times where decisions had to be made. For us raising Thomas is where the most gut wrenching decisions began. When he was a young child we chose to have him take medication prescribed by a very trusted specialist. Unfortunately the medications, specialists and therapists were not enough to keep everyone safe and we followed the experts' recommendation to have Thomas attend a residential school. That was not an easy decision to make and we had to put aside what we as parents wanted and put what was best for Thomas in the forefront.
With Alyssa and Lelly being typical children, raising them was the complete flip side of raising Thomas. They were so neurotypical it's like they both read a growth and development textbook to know which milestone to meet next. They kept my sanity quite a few times.
In 2006, I gave birth to Samantha. Omg Samantha was amazing to me. I had had 2 losses before her. In the hospital I was tearfully hugging and thanking my doctor (whom I adored) for giving Samantha to me safe and sound. Thomas was 10, Alyssa 8, and Lelly 5. We were officially a family of 6.
I used to worry that I was being judged when I was pregnant with Samantha. I felt as though people were talking behind my back, "Oh look, they can't handle their oldest kid, but here they go having another!" After a while I got over it and came to the realization that no one else was living my life so there weren't any opinions that mattered besides mine and Tommy's.
To this day I try to keep that attitude, especially since we aren't finished raising our kids, Samantha is 17. Just because she turns 18 this year doesn't mean we will be "finished". Nor does that mean people in our lives will agree with or understand decisions Tommy and I make. If I didn't ask for an opinion, one can keep it to themselves.
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