Tags
asd, autism, children, children of engineers, engineering and autism, family, kids, married, pregnancy, simon baron-cohen, spectrum
So.
I’m now married, and just like that (not remotely “just like that”) I’m kinda sorta okay basically planning to have a 3rd child.
You may be able to ascertain from this statement, that I have 2 children already. Or, if you’ve ever read my blog before, you might know this fact already. You may also be aware that both of my children–one girl, one boy–are autistic, that my girl is the more severely affected, and since my kids’ diagnoses, I’ve more or less accepted the fact that I’m probably on the spectrum as well.
I’m also married to the son of an engineer; I almost never do this, but there’s some interesting reading on that subject:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1362361397011010
Click to access f49917d08fc12d8f8b85a8708017a11046a1.pdf
So. So, so, so.
Do I just *want* another autistic child? You must be asking yourself that question; I know I would be, in your place. The answer (answers, even) could be explained in many different ways, with a lot more background detail, but here’s the summation:
I want more kids–I want to have a child with the love of my life–and if said child happens to be autistic, well, it’s not like I’m ill-equipped to deal with that eventuality. Experts by experience, that’s the en vogue term, I believe… I’ve been doing this for over 11 years now (34 years, if we’re counting my obvious-in-hindsight experiences of social ostracization and issues with Theory of Mind, growing up and as a young adult). If experience can make you an expert, I am one.
And my kids go to a great school; they’re offering parents a chance to come take some workshops in sensory skills, basic Makaton, Numicon, etc etc etc, over the next couple of months, so in a few weeks, I could be even more skilled at parenting autistic kids… and. Even if I weren’t, I mean, I’m autistic myself. I’m seeing this in a pretty black/white way, and I’ve come down on the side of, “better another autistic kid, than no kid with the love of my life/no mini-husband/no one last chance to do it better, now that I understand the likely challenges we’ll face”.
I think I’ve made up my mind. If you know many autistic folk, or just one autistic person reasonably well, you’ll know what that means.
I’ll post as soon as I know I’m pregnant, alright?
And for my next post, I’ll talk about coming off my meds in preparation for gestation (look at that, it’s an approximate rhyme). Sounds fun, right?
Y’all wish me luck.
SuperDepressed 