choices

I finished Down's Syndrome,The First 18 Months. I was crying through a big chunk of the latter parts and ended up being waaaaaaaay more scared than I was when I started. I guess it's because it was emphasizing all of the work that goes into have a child with Ds. All the physical therapy, the basic skills development. It seems so overwhelming.

And it seems like the parents featured were so.... accepting. Loving-like. Deeply compassionate, patient, saintly-types. They seemed to be a-okay with Ds before they even found out their child had it. There was a little talk from one or two about a grief process, but not much. I mean, it doesn't seem like they went through the wringer like I am. And they didn't seem to struggle with prejudice/pity against those with retardation like I do. No blips on their radiant hearts.

Later on I was reading more from Choosing Naia. That was another one. It's like, when they were debating keeping her or not, they seemed most upset about her heart defect. Not so much with the Ds/mental retardation piece. I care most about the mental retardation piece. I guess because it's just not fix-able.

In one of their conversations with a family with a kid with Ds in the book (when they were trying to determine whether or not to keep Naia), the father was talking about how he had a friend whose kid had a progressive disability and wouldn't likely live past 25. The two fathers would talk, and once talked about who 'had it worse': the one who had sparkling conversations and interactions with his son who was slated to die young, or the one who had a daughter that would live to be who-knows-how-old yet with whom he'd never be able to have a 'real' conversation.

Quite the question, isn't it.