Nianya's World: How I Became a Special Needs Mother. . .

I started this blog a year and a half ago to reach out to other parents of special needs children, let them know that there are others in the world, who have been there and done that (BDTD) and provide my own version of bone dry cynical humor, while blogging about days in the life of a special needs parent.

Over the past several months I have acquired a small, but faithful group of followers, and, in the past two weeks, since I discovered Twitter, I have discovered a whole new special needs world. I love the ability to share stories, sites and information on the subject.

So, I have finally decided to go forward with an idea that I have been batting back and forth for more than a year now. Publishing my stories.

Most of my blogs include tidbits about my special needs life before blogging, but I have focused on our present life and never taken the time to write about how we started and everything we went though in the past 14 years.

If I can make myself follow through with this project, my plan is to blog every Sat. night or so with one chapter of our story. That's a good 20 chapters, which I intend to bundle together and submit to publishers until someone pays me for my story.

I don't expect to end up on Oprah or Good Morning America. After all, I only have two special needs children, not octuplets or John & Kate + 8. My story is like Joe the Plumber's. I'm just and average special needs mother, with a full-time job and good insurance (TG), who struggles daily to pay for medications, surgeries, doctor's co-pays and special services.

Yes, I could use money from the publication of my stories, but that's not my purpose in life. My purpose, ultimately, is to make sure that other special needs parents do not have to make a choice about whether to seek a therapy or go forward with medical treatments, because they can't afford the co-pays or out-of-pocket costs.

That's why a couple of friends and I started a non-profit called Lifeover Ministries, which now focuses solely on helping parents of special needs children.

When I sell this story, the profits will go to Lifeover, to help other families.

So here is the First Chapter in my story:

Hi, I'm Nianya, and I'm the mother of two special needs children.

Growing up in the south as the child of two doctors, I never thought I would be where I am now. After high school, I attended college, went to law school, spent 6 months overseas as a legal intern, moved to California to complete an advanced law degree (LLM) and met the love of my life.

I had an impressive resume: B.S., J.D., L.L.M. and my MRS, which as ever southern belle knows, is the only degree which really counts in life. Especially if you marry a former K.A. from Charleston.

Who'd have thought that I would have to go all the way to California to meet a true southern gentleman.

After we married, we stayed in California for a couple of years so that I could focus on my career, which was a true sacrifice from my husband, who was not admitted to practice there.

Then we moved to Atlanta, Georgia, looking to settle there between our two families, in Alabama and South Carolina. When we wed, we both agreed that eventually we would move to Atlanta, so that we could both work there.

So we built a house in the metro area, used our savings for a hefty down payment and spent the next few months settling in and looking for jobs. Back then, the job market was good, but not great for new attorneys with our particular experience.

Long story short, my husband, whom I will refer to from here on out as Dh, took a job as an associate with a very small real estate firm and I choose a position as an administrative assistant that was close to home and came with great insurance, because we were ready to start a family.

For the next several months, while we hope for a baby, we enjoyed the flexibility of being young, childless and in love.

After 12 months or so, we knew something was wrong. My cousins and friends were all having babies without blinking their eyes and all I got was my period every month.

Eventually we went to the doctor, tried Clomid and miraculously got a positive EPT, which I swear was the result of our 3rd anniversary celebration. You know the old saying: Give get some candy and flowers and get some day.

My pregnancy progressed wonderfully for all of two weeks after which I started cramping and bleeding. We endured a 6-week ultrasound and tried not to cringe when I asked the nurse if we could have a picture and she responded: "If we get a heartbeat."

I suppose you could say that our first ultrasound was the beginning of our lives as special needs parents. We got a beautiful picture of our daughter's heartbeat and orders from the doctor to cease and desist with all connubial relations for at least the next 3 months. So much for young love.

The next three months dragged by with the usual morning, noon and night sickness and my forays out to the local stores to order furniture and baby stuff, which we put on lay away.

After the initial bleeding, I had a normal pregnancy, or so we thought. At 13 weeks the doctor gave us the go ahead, which resulted in another round of bleeding after only one try and a second ultra sound, which showed a low lying placenta.

Diagnosis, separate beds for the duration.

Things got even more interesting when, in my 16th week, my hip suddenly gave out and I ended up in physical therapy wearing a pregnancy support belt so that I could walk with a cane. On the bright side, Dh and I had booked a trip to Disney World, which we had postponed from earlier in the pregnancy because I could not fly. He dutifully pushed me around the Magic Kingdom in a wheelchair, which got us instant access to all of the rides. At least the ones they would allow a pregnant lady to ride.

I had a moment of panic when I got to our hotel and realized that my usually very active baby had not moved for hours. Not since before we boarded the plane. Turns out the plane ride lulled her to sleep, because she started kicking me vigorously after I sat down on a bench for 30 minutes to relax.

We returned home after a wonderful trip and two days later, my company burned down and I was out of a job.

So I hit the unemployment ranks. In order to collect my $250 per week, I had to send out my resume, attend unemployment seminars and interview with anyone who was willing to hire me. The interviews always went well, until I told them I was pregnant. That's a deal killer.

At 24 weeks I had my next ultrasound at which they told me I had to come back in two weeks because they could not see all 4 chambers of my daughter's heart. They told me not to worry, because it often happened at this stage.

At 26 weeks, I learned that we were having a girl and I was referred to a perinatologist because the ultrasound showed an irregular heartbeat.

That was the last time I ever went to an ultrasound without Dh. I will never forget calling him when I got home and crying while telling him that we we're having a girl, but there might be something wrong with her heart.

We prayed for days while waiting for our appointment with the perinatologist for a fetal echo-cardiogram. We were understandably nervous when we met the doctor, but he immediately set us at ease. He turned on the machine and we noticed that it was in full color. Curiosity took the place or worry as I asked him if it was a more sophisticated ultrasound machine. "No," he said, "just a more sophisticated doctor. Anyone can crash a Porsche."

I doubt many parents get the chance to see they're baby's heart in full color. It's quite amazing. After only a couple of minutes, the doctor asked if we'd like to see the rest of her. Of course, we said, and asked him if he could confirm her sex. He videotaped 20 minutes of our sweet daughter on the ultrasound and said he was 95 percent sure she was a girl. He did not get his 100 percent look.

So we went back home in high spirits and I resumed my job search.

I vividly remember my last interview when I was 7 months pregnant. They offered me the job and asked when I could start. I said, well I really should let you know that I'm having a baby in a couple of months. The look on the interviewers face was priceless. I was wearing a maternity suit, but wasn't really trying to hide my belly.

Less than a week later, my interviews stopped abruptly when I started having contractions at only 27 weeks. After a trip to the hospital, I found myself on medication, monitoring and complete bed rest for the duration of my pregnancy.

Needless to say, I was scared out of my mind at first, but quickly got into a routine. I was allowed to get up for backroom breaks and showers, but not allowed the stairs more than once a day.

Dh moved a small refrigerator and microwave into our bedroom and left me soup or something to heat up for lunch each day. Dinner consisted of frozen foods or take out. Let's just day that I didn't marry Dh for his skills as a cook.

At 30 weeks, I got the doctor's permission to travel to Alabama, so that we could spend Thanksgiving with my mother. My contractions were under control, or so I thought.

By the time we reached my mother's house 3 hours later, I was in labor. Luckily my mother, a doctor, was very familiar with the local hospital where I spent the night. They kept me heavily sedated, so I didn't know until much later how close I came to giving birth. My daughter was head down, engaged and pressing on my cervix, which had started to dilate.

I know God was watching over us that night, because my contractions slowed and I was allowed to go home where I spent several hours at our local hospital in Labor & Delivery (L&D). They upped my medication and told me to stay in bed until 36 weeks if I made it that far.

I spent the month of December making Christmas items, including a hand-made felt stocking for our daughter. I never actually finished the stocking, because I was afraid that if I did, she would be born before Christmas.

The holidays were tough. My contractions started up with a vengeance again on Christmas Day, but they opted to up my medication rather than sending me to the hospital. Apparently the doctor on call did not want to come in.

On New Years, we had a repeat performance. At 35 weeks I had had enough. I agreed to one more week on the medication and at 36 weeks, when they stopped my meds. I went into full labor.

That's when I learned that I had an iron cervix. I dilated to two centimeters and stayed there for a couple of days, while I endured constant and painful contractions. I also swelled up like a pig from what they diagnosed after the fact as pre-eclampsia.

Long story short, my water broke at midnight on the third day, I was admitted to the hospital and induced with pitocin the next morning, because my contractions, while off the chart, were not progressing properly.

In the end, I dilated from 2-10 centimeters in less than 30 minutes, they had to call my doctor back from her lunch break and I nearly ended up with a C-section due to my baby's dropping heart rate before Jesse came into the world with the use of forceps. She was 8 lbs 4 oz at 36.5 weeks and had a huge head.

Back then my insurance would only pay for 24 hours in the hospital so they sent us home the next days even though Jesse's blood sugar was low and I had hemorrhaged after her birth.

Or first two days were a blur. Jesse cried all the time, because I was trying to breastfeed and had no milk. I was exhausted, not healing very well and had no idea what to do with a newborn.

Thank heavens my mother had the sense to insist on paying for a nurse to come to our house to check on me on the third day. The nurse also checked on Jesse and immediately noticed that she was jaundiced.

They doctor's opted to treat her at home for the next 10 days with a light belt that covered most of her body and daily home visits to check her blood count.

Jesse had to stay on the non-portable lights 24/7, except for a daily bath so she had to stay in her cradle right next to our bed the entire time. All of our early pictures of her consist of one of us sitting on the edge of the bed holding and/or feeding her.

We also had to feed her formula every 2 hours and keep track of home much she ate, drank, peed and pooped. So much for breast feeding.

And so her life began and our life changed drastically.

The first couple of months were really tough. Jesse had colic or so we thought. We were giving her soy formula because they tried milk formula in the hospital and ended up having to pump her stomach because she could not tolerate it.

I wish I had known then, what I do now. Jesse was colicky, she was reacting to the soy formula and should have been put on Alimentum. Eventually, though, she stated tolerating the soy and we had a great few months with our new daughter.

I went back to work as an attorney, Jesse attended a wonderful home daycare and grew like a weed and Dh managed to transition from working as an associate to being a solo practitioner.

When he called his boss in the hospital to tell him the good news, his boss generously gave him the rest of the week off and told him he wanted to talk about Dh going independent when he returned.

We attended all of our scheduled new baby visits, Jesse got her three rounds of shots and at 6 months we noticed a yellow spot on her head and a tiny red dot on her cheek. The pediatrician said not to worry, they looked like bug bites.

At 8 months, the tiny spot began to grow into a blood bubble and at 10 months the bubble burst and started bleeding uncontrollably.

Turns out the spot was a hemangioma, which was connected to an artery. We were referred to a plastic surgeon, who scheduled Jesse for surgery the next day. At least we didn't have much time to think about it and we were grateful for a diagnosis after a week of bloody sheets from her hemorrhaging face.

Our plastic surgeon was great and even removed the yellow spot from Jesse's head just to be safe. He had us come back at 18 months to see how she was healing and recommended additional surgery to fix Jesse's scar. we opted to wait until she was older and give her the choice.

Unfortunately, we were not so lucky with the yellow spot. The biopsy came back with a diagnosis of juvenile xanthogranuloma, which is a pre-cancerous lesion. We were warned to watch for future lesions and have Jesse's eyes examined by a specialist each year, because the condition can cause lesions on the optic nerve that would lead to blindness.

Over the next 2-3 years, we sold out first house and built a new one, endured Jesse's constant ears infections and spiking fevers, which only subsided with two sets of ear tubes, and decided that we had a very difficult toddler.

The only thing we knew about autism we had learned from watching Rainman and ,like most uneducated parents, we associated autism with children in institutions.

Jesse babbled at 4 months, but never developed her speech, and communicated by pointing and/or screaming, but she grew like a weed, started pulling up at 6-7 months and walked at barely 10 months. She refused to eat baby food at 9 months and insisted on eating whatever was on our plate. This resulted in several choking episodes, but, as luck would have it, Jesse had reflux so when she choked she spewed.

Jesse also learned very early on that her Montessori toddler teacher would call us to come pick her up, if she threw a fit. She screamed, gagged and inevitably threw up on a daily basis. Try telling a teacher your child is not sick, she's just throwing a tantrum.

Jesse also developed an aversion to most clothing, particularly dresses. From the time I found out that I was having a girl I bought all these adorable dresses and clothes to show her off in. Turns out Jesse didn't want to be shown off. She preferred being naked and shoeless.

After being scolded umpteen times for going out of the house without her shoes, I found her in the yard one day with nothing but a diaper on, but I had to laugh, because she was wearing her shoes.

I gave up on the dresses when she was three after an Easter scene, which I will never forget. Jesse threw her typical kicking and screaming fit on the floor when I put her Easter dress on. Later, after church, she screamed at us and kicked and scratched us when we tried to sit her down in a restaurant booth for Easter lunch. I spent lunch in the car after pinning my screaming child down in her car seat.

Those fits should have been our first clue. They happened all the time. We quickly lost the ability to go anywhere without worry about something setting her off. Jesse wouldn't sit in a stroller and she refused to hold hands. We would go to Sam's club, turn our back for a second and realize that she had wondered off. If you grabbed her hand and tried to bring her back she would lie down on the floor, kicking and screaming.

I had to carry her out, even though she was getting too big for me to control. If Dh carried her out screaming, people would look at him like he was a kidnapper. He used to joke that he should wear a sign saying "I'm the daddy, bugger off." We could laugh or we could cry.

Nianya