Were we crazy to add another baby to the mix after Rufus?
In a nutshell, no. Rufus was our second child so there was already a little (a lot of) craziness and juggling of needs, places to be and physical and environmental logistics to organise but we knew pretty soon after his diagnosis that we wanted to add another child into the mix. Our reasons were multi-layered and I will attempt to explain the various reasons why baby number three was so very welcome in our world.
Firstly, we wanted her. I love babies and wanted to do it all over again - the pregnancy, the birth, all the crazy baby stages. I love it all.
3 weeks before I popped.
Secondly, we were acutely aware that Rufus will require a lot of looking after when we are old or no longer here and we felt that it was a huge burden for our eldest to bear alone so we wanted her to have someone to - hopefully - share the load with.
Thirdly, we wanted to give our eldest the joy of having a neurotypical sibling. We knew that, despite having a beautiful sibling relationship with Rufus, she didn’t have the bond that we longed for her to have with a neurotypical sibling. We had never seen our children play together in the way most parents take for granted. We had seen her look after, worry about and help her brother. We had also seen them both in fits of giggles together playing roughly but the play was always limited and we knew how much enjoyment we could - hopefully - give her by providing her with another playmate.
You may be reading this wishing desperately that you even had the option to have another child and for whatever reason it just hasn’t happened for you yet. Or you may be thinking you are happy, fulfilled and it suits you as a family to have one child with special needs. Or you may be having serious second thoughts, reading this with a pregnant belly thinking, ‘WHAT HAVE I DOOOOOONE?!’. Believe me, I’ve been there. Or perhaps it hasn’t turned out the way you had imagined. After all, there are no guarantees that adding another child into the mix will give you the neurotypical sibling you were hoping for. There’s always the chance you will have yet another child with special needs. That thought crossed my mind many times during my pregnancy with baby number three but would I have loved her any less? Of course not. Would I have grieved the neurotypical sibling I had longed to give my eldest? Absolutely yes. In exactly the same way that I went through a grieving process when we got Rufus’s diagnosis. But we are clever creatures. We adapt, we move on and we have endless amounts of love to give. Thank goodness.
Spending quality time together while they were both off school at the same time earlier this year with chicken pox.
So, if you’re teetering on the edge of trying for another baby after your child with special needs and you’re worried about all the big things and all the little things, I can assure you it's TOTALLY doable and also totally brilliant. You have to remember your house is already full to the brim with crazy. You are already way more prepared than you think because you have been intensely caring for one child much longer than most parents. You are already way more set up for sleepless nights because your hardcore special needs parenting has taught your body that you really don’t need as much sleep as you used to think you did. You can cope with the logistics, the extra equipment, the spoon feeding and the running up and down the stairs for nappies and making sure stair gates are locked because you already do all of this every day anyway. You can do being pregnant and giving birth because you (hopefully) have a village of people to look after your child with special needs when you need a break. If you don’t have your village set up yet, put it on your ‘to do’ list then request a meeting with a social worker to make sure you have a care/respite plan in place for when you’re going to pop.
‘The big shop’ was a constant challenge. I remember this temporary solution only lasted a few weeks before his grabbing became too much to manage.
Baby number three brought more joy to our family than I thought possible and the most surprising thing is how much joy she has brought to Rufus. He utterly adores her and wants to be near her. All. The. Time. With each of their new skills came new challenges about how to keep them apart in the house because given half a chance, he would pull her hair, poke his fingers in her eyes and grab her so intensely he could have easily taken her breath away or thrown her across the room. As a baby she was just not strong enough to hold her own. I felt like I was constantly moving furniture or setting up safe areas and no-go areas of the house. I spent the first few years constantly troubleshooting these things but now she’s almost four and he very rarely catches her off-guard these days. She’s well-trained, always on the look out and can sneak a snack past him with lightening-speed ninja skills.
This was one of the safest ways we found to keep the baby safe while they were in the same room together.
When we planned her, we expected - hoped - she would bring joy to her big sister… but mainly just care for Rufus. We didn’t expect him to be particularly interested in her. But boy were we wrong. She has taught us to never underestimate the beauty of bringing another human into the world. Prepare for and accept the inevitable challenges but get ready to be surprised. It might just be the best decision you ever make.
Photo credits for the above three photographs to Hannah Beatrice Photography