The Mom Crowd

Until recently, I assumed that the divorce rate among parents of children with special needs, including Down syndrome have a higher divorce rate than parents of children who do not have special needs due to the additional obstacles these parents face. I was surprised to learn that, in fact, parents of children with Down syndrome have a lower divorce rate than parents of children without special needs. In my own marriage, I can see how having Darah has strengthened my relationship with my husband. She is an absolute joy to parent and watch grow up.  Neither of us could have ever dreamed that we would have this much love for someone.  Our perspective on life is drastically different than what is likely would have been had we not had a child with special needs.  We appreciate the small things and have overcome very big things since Darah has joined our lives, which has definitely strengthened our relationship.  Truth be told, having a child with Down syndrome has most certainly added stress to my relationship with my husband, but we both hands-down agree that the most stressful season of our relationship were the colicky days of our typical developing son. 

This article discusses research performed at Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. One theory in the article as to why the divorce rate may be lower among parents of children with Down syndrome may be due to the “Down syndrome advantage.” Meaning, children with Down syndrome have easier behavior than typical children and that parents of children with Down syndrome are often older, more educated, and married before having children.

I disagree with their theory.  This article isn’t accurate when they say that most children with Down syndrome are born to older parents. Actually, most children with Down syndrome are born to parents UNDER the age of 35. This is a very common misconception, even misunderstood by some physicians. While it is true that women over the age of 35 have a higher chance of having a child with Down syndrome, the pregnancy rate every year after age 35 decreases exponentially compared to the pregnancy rate before age 35. So, if you consider that most children in general are born to women UNDER 35 years old, there is going to be a larger pool of children born with Down syndrome in that population, due to sheer numbers. In other words, if a 49 year old woman has a 1 in 10 chance of having a child with Down syndrome, but it’s difficult to find ten 49 year old women having babies.  If a 26 year old woman has a 1 in 800 chance of having a child with Down syndrome, it is pretty easy to find 800 24 year old women having babies.  {I hope that makes sense!} 

I have my own theory on why the divorce rate is lower in parents of children with Down syndrome. If you consider the fact that in the U.S., more than 90% of babies who are prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted, most babies born with Down syndrome are born into families who either refused prenatal testing because it did not make a difference to them or learned of their child’s diagnosis prenatally and chose to give that child life regardless of their number of chromosomes.  I believe that their approach and attitude about raising their children is what positively influences their marriages.  My theory is consistent with this research findings that parents of children with special needs other than Down syndrome actually have a higher divorce rate than parents of children without special needs.  Most other serious congenital issues are not detected prenatally as often as Down syndrome.  I believe that once autism and other congenital issues are able to be determined prenatally, our population is going to sadly become a lot smaller.  Most people are unaware of the waiting lists in the United States of people who WANT to specifically adopt a child with Down syndrome and other special needs.  Of course, that is my own personal theory. I’d love to hear yours!

Are you surprised to learn that the divorce rate is lower among parents of children with Down syndrome?  Why do you think the divorce rate is lower among parents of children with Down syndrome?

I have been a reading like crazy.  I had originally resolved to read 26 books this year (roughly two per month), but I started off so strongly that I am actually shooting for 52 by year’s end.  I am not reading many difficult books, so I don’t want you to think I’m some sort of Rory Gilmore.  Sure, I’ve got a decent piece of literature here & there, but it’s usually surrounded by plenty of fluff.  You can see my 2009 books-finished list here.

Last month, I completely raced through The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton.  It was published about a year ago, and I saw it on the paperbacks table at Barnes & Noble.   Because I love The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood so much, I have a radar for any fiction about a group of women friends with the words “society”, “sisterhood”, “club”, etc in its title.  This trend both entertains me and makes my eyes roll.  🙂  Anyway, this story about five mom friends in 1960s California who become published authors sounded quite intriguing.

I was not disappointed.  The story is told through the eyes of narrator Frankie, and she describes the evolution of her friendship with Kath, Linda, Brett, and Ally – all young mothers who spend their mornings together chatting at the park while their children play.  It was nice to read about moms who still yearn for friendship after having young children.  And when these believable characters started an amateur writing circle to engage themselves creatively, I was both envious and inspired.

Various subplots woven throughout the book had the five principal  characters seeing each other through pregnancies, miscarriages, unfaithful spouses, taboo interracial relationships, the womens’ lib movement, major illness, and the highs and lows of 1960s/70s American history.  Though this is fiction, I was kind of amazed by the medical subplots.  Some of the characters were dealing with major health crises, and the way they were treated astounded me – after all, the 1960s were only 50 years ago.  I was born in the mid 70s, so to imagine my mom might have had a similar experience while pregnant with me is fascinating.

If you’re looking for a breezy, heartfelt read about moms who seek comfort in their friendships with others, The Wednesday Sisters is a great choice.

What are you reading this summer, Mom Crowd?

Second photo courtesy ruminatrix

Thank you so much for all your comments from my post last week.  We are doing well despite the circumstances and I am trying to navigate my way through the grief process.  I’m finding it a little difficult because we are so busy with all of the packing for our move.  I find myself avoiding being alone and I don’t like silent moments.  I think that if this move weren’t hanging over our heads I would want to stay in bed longer.  Usually when I wak up, I find myself evaluating how I’m feeling and then the enormous list of things to accomplish for the day take over and out of bed I go.  

After our experience with our miscarriage last week, I wanted to write a follow up post about it.  My ideas about how I handled the situation may seem a little “earthy-birthy” to some, but I truly believe that many women have the same thoughts about letting their babies go.  I hesitated mentioning my desires about how I wanted to deal with the actual passing of the baby because I thought it might seem weird.  I want women to know that they aren’t alone.  The idea of letting my baby fall into the toilet and flushing it down into the sewer system was too much.  My baby is too precious to me to let it get flushed down the toilet.  I didn’t like the idea of the d&c for the same reason. I know that some medical facilities treat miscarriage tissues with care and offer parents a chance to take it home but most don’t.  Even if my baby was 2.5 inches big he/she was still mine and precious to me.

I woke up on Friday morning with strong contractions.  After an hour I got up and knew that the baby would be coming out.  I had a jar in the bathroom and when I stood up I knew I needed to get to the jar.  I held it between my legs and gave a little push and everything came out into the jar.  I was surprised that when I looked in the jar the baby was right on top.  I felt relief that I was at home when this happened and not out running errands.  I couldn’t imagine how difficult it would have been to deal with that in a public setting.  I called for my husband who was downstairs with the kids.  I showed him the baby and we had a lovely moment together crying, hugging, and mourning the death of our baby. My baby had 10 fingers and toes, eyes, nose, and mouth.  He was precious.  I’m glad that we were able to see the baby–it somehow made the pregnancy more real to me.  I am amazed at how little babies are formed in our wombs.  

We knew that we wanted to have a burial service for the baby sometime that day but I had to deal with all the aftermath of passing the baby.  I had a significant amount of blood loss and we were concerned that we were going to have to go to the ER to get help with the bleeding.  We had talked to some friends who knew about the situation at the moment and had them praying for us.  Thankfully, the heavy bleeding and cramping finally slowed down and I was able to stay at home and rest.  It was a difficult day.  The kids weren’t doing well, my husband was not doing well.  Somehow seeing the baby opened up his daddy heart and he was able to grieve.  Before, he had on his husband hat and was concerned about me and my own physical health.  We decided to postpone the little service for the baby until Saturday morning.  

I decided to bury the baby under my favorite tree in the front yard.  It is a beautiful Japanese Maple tree that I love looking at.  The leaves are purple and red and when the sun shines down on the tree it is just beautiful.  The boys climb on the tree too and I knew that it would be the best place to bury the baby.  My husband read part of the service out of the Book of Common Prayer and we said the Lord’s Prayer together as a family.  It was very simple and just what we needed.  Our boys did well with the service and our 4 year old said on the way back into the house, “Mommy, I hope when we have another baby that it doesn’t die and that it keeps growing.”  Me too, Isaac, me too.  Ewan, the 5 year old, asked again why the baby died.  We tried to answer as best as we can because even we don’t know why.  It was hard to believe that something was wrong with the baby when I saw him/her.  To me, the baby was perfect.  

We decided to name the baby Keeva (phonetic spelling) which is Gailec for “beloved”.  It is a girl’s name but we picked it for the meaning rather than the gender.  I put together a shadow box on Saturday to have a special keepsake for our baby.  A good friend knitted some little baby booties for Keeva and I put those in the box along with the sonogram picture and name.  It felt like we were experiencing some healthy closure.

I talked with a friend of mine who has also had a miscarriage and I was so relieved to know that my desires to bury my baby and not just flush him/her down the toilet were not totally out of the ordinary.  She is a midwife and also knows many other mothers who have had miscarriage who have done similar things that we have (with catching the baby and having a little burial service).  I have only heard one person talk about it though before.  A friend shared with me many years ago that after she had a miscarriage she put the baby in a potted plant for similar reasons.  I think if she had not shared her experience with me so many years ago that I would have felt extremely strange and alone with my desires to catch my baby and bury him/her.  I share my story with you so that you know that you aren’t alone.  You aren’t weird or crazy for wanting to keep your baby nearby.

I realize that not everyone feels the same way I do about this sort of thing, and that is okay.  I don’t want to make anyone feel bad if they didn’t choose to catch the baby and bury it.  I realize that some circumstances don’t allow for that to happen.  I just wanted to ofer my story so that anyone else who has done something similar but is afraid to share it won’t feel alone.  And of course I want everyone to know that there are options out there for how to deal with a miscarriage.    

Next week, I promise I’ll write about something else–thanks for listening to my story. I hope that someone finds hope and encouragement through it.

Before I had children I never thought I would have so many toys just for one kid. Friends and family enjoy gifting my little girl with toys. I am forever thankful for their generosity, but I have to put them somewhere.

The migration of toys started in the nursery then spread to my bedroom. Next they encroached into a corner of the living room. The toys grew too much for the living room. Finally they made their way into a space that is supposed to be a formal living area which we have used as a library. Now they have even moved into our formal dining area.

All my bedrooms are upstairs, but we don’t hang out there much during the day. I like being able to see my kiddos from the kitchen and our living room. So half of the downstairs is now a play area and I love it.

We recently replaced the formal dining table with a futon and a t.v. I don’t know why this made me so happy. I love hanging out in there with my kids. Of course, there is more I want to do to the room like curtains on the back windows, wall art, change the lighting, and have better storage for the small toys.

Having a designated area for the toys has kept my regular living room more clean and a retreat for me at the end of the day.  Now I just need to teach my 2 year old how to pick her toys up every night. If she doesn’t fully understand how to clean up by the time she is a preschooler, then I am going to try Amelia’s tips on How to Teach Your Preschooler to Pick Up Their Toys.

I understand that I am lucky to have some extra space in my house to create a play area. It seems like such a necessity. You need space to store toys and kids need a place to play and be a kid.

Almost every house that I have been to that has a play area is fun. So I created my own. One day I will reclaim the dining room and library, but until then my little kiddos rule the room.

I don’t have any great insight about organizing toys or creative ways to make your playroom more fun. I just know that having a play area is cool.

How about you? Have you made a designated play area? Did you ever think you would have one?

This is a Just Because post.

The video below is “I’m the Letter T” sung to the tune of “Hey There Delilah” by The Plain White T’s. I saw it this morning on Sesame Street and I thought it was pretty clever. I just have one question – if Timmy is wearing a T-Shirt and Tina is wearing a tube top, and the first T is wearing nothing – Does that make him naked?  (Maybe I shouldn’t post random things when I am tired. I say silly things. 🙂 )