Falling in & out of love

As mom to 5 glorious daughters I can say that I never knew love before they arrived.  Even at the very surprising age of 16, when I discovered I would be getting shotgun married within 6 weeks, and I delivered my firstborn while still in high school, there was such joy mingled with pain. And two very long and impatient years passed by before my next darling drew her breathe; I discovered early on that sometimes it is the thing you most long for that is kept at bay & for a  divine purpose not known to you. Then babies 3 & 4 came amidst trying to run a family orchard, pie baking by the thousands, crust crimping & flour-faced even in my dreams, how did the years run away so quickly?  Those older siblings left home, dug roots at college and there I stood with such an ‘empty-nest heartache’ that I can’t  begin to put that loss into words.  A mile long road of mistakes, changes, & two college degrees later I finally found myself alone.  My mama said, “you need to get a hobby” while I pined for the every-other-week visits of my girls who were having dad time.  I recall vividly saying to her, “I could be a mom forever. It’s what I’m good at. ”  (Be careful what you wish for, comes to mind.)

Fast forward, sitting at the breakfast table, 2 daughters present and my future husband, (yet we didn’t know that was what life had in store) getting  lectured by my 4^th wise child, informing me about methods of birth control and how many life spermatozoa are in a tsp. of well, you know. 9 months later, at age 41, their baby sister, my girlchild #5 entered the world as the midnight hour chimed.  Her birth was a blessing as all of my daughters were present for the labor as well as my mother, who’d birthed 7 kids herself but  never once saw a delivery from beneath the cloud of ether. A proud, nervous Dad stood by also, sturdy at the head of the bed, amazed at my fortitude and ability to withstand pain without screaming like a banshee.  Mom and the girls were trapped at the business end of the bed as the doctor refused to let them move once he’d arrived. They still speak today of that being the best form ever of birth control, though some 16 years later, they too have gotten past the horror & added 7 gorgeous grandchildren to our lives.

Jasmynn, all 8 ½ lbs. of glorious squalling red-wrinkled baby brought an elation to my world which I had been missing.  There is nothing wrong with a mom being smitten by her newborn. It’s expected. It’s normal.  So for 3 years I walked lightly. Danced is more like it with Jasmynn while my other daughters moved forward with making their own ways in life.  Yes, something was definitely “off” but who could notice between the xx’s and oo’s she brought to each day. Things were not going according to the milestone schedules I opted to ignore at each well-childcare visit to the pediatrician, but no mention of anything awry other than “she has too many mama’s at her beck and call.” She crawled late, walked even later.  Language didn’t come or it was shrieking, garbled attempts to make noise. She was clearly different, but I was not ready to see it just yet. So when that mind-blowing diagnosis came it was like something died inside.  Don’t get me wrong; I still loved her, but the pure joy of every breath came with a price and a weight I found myself buried beneath.

Getting an autism diagnosis is absolutely not the end of the world. “Things can always be worse.”  It’s not like she had a life-threatening disease. There were kids dying every day. But try telling the mama  who sets the sun and moon by her child’s smile that piece of advice.  It’s just better not to say anything at all and let each of us process the information at our pace, in our way. For if I’ve learned anything in all of this, it takes time to sift through the emotions, the loss, and letting go of the “what might have beens” we have for our children.  But only a fellow mama or daddy on this autism journey can understand that.