I didn’t know what to expect when Joshua was born. I did some “homework” which was mostly reading books. One stands out in my memories – What to Expect When You’re Expecting by by Heidi Murkoff.
The information was helpful in some areas. But once Joshua was born, we quickly realized that it was limited in scope and was not as helpful as we hoped. If there were books on special needs babies at the time we did not find them. We were in unknown territory with our first child, and we were soon disoriented.
Fortunately, we were surrounded by a loving church family at Woodland Baptist Church in Peoria, Illinois. We landed in their midst as homeless expectant parents to be. We were living in a hotel at first because our house was still under construction. A retired couple in the church offered us their fully furnished and vacant basement and we lived with them for several months until our house was finished. God bless you Logan and Doris and so many others.
Joshua was my first experience as a father. He is a joy and has been since the moment he came into this world. Being his father has challenged me in almost every area of parenting and being a human. It was only through on the job training that I learned enough to navigate parenting a special needs child.
I had support systems that helped me through but there was no one I could talk to that was sharing, or had shared, the same experiences. It was learn as you go, do the best you can and push through it. And it was act strong even when you did not feel strong.
The period of life-or-death battles Josh went through in the first two years was crushing us. I would not allow myself to falter for fear of a domino effect on Dawn. She was barely getting through day to day and at times it seemed like she had reached her tipping point.
One night at the hospital we were sitting with Joshua who was in a crib covered with an oxygen tent. The doctors could not figure out what was going on and the outlook was bleak. There was no certainty he would survive the night. Dawn crawled into that small crib, wrapped her body around his and stayed with him through the night. If our baby was going to heaven that night, she was going to make sure he was not alone when the moment came. She wept, prayed and sang and then wept, prayed and sang some more. Morning came. We made it.
Not as easy as falling off a log but we made it.