Thank you for taking the time to stop by. I have been thinking about and praying for you for a very long time. While I’m writing for anyone anxious about the prospect of raising a child with special needs, all are welcome. My prayer is that no matter your story, you will find inspiration and encouragement here and maybe even a new perspective.
My purpose in writing the blog is to share what life is like with Cory – now and way back in the beginning. I’ll share what worked and what didn’t, and sometimes I’ll share fun stories – because there are so many.
If you’re like me, I’m sure you’re curious about who we are, so I’ll give you a little background. My given name is Dawn, but I’m typically referred to as Mike’s wife, Kellen’s mom, but most often, Cory’s mom and I am honored by all three titles. The boys in this family are big fans of the stage, and I love cheering them on from the wings to use a theater term. Stepping out from the shadows is a leap of faith for me, but I serve a big God and trust him to help me figure it out.
Mike and I have been married for 30 glorious (mostly – wink) years. We make an awesome team, and I can’t imagine this journey without him. Kellen (29) is living his best life in LA. He is an excellent communicator, and we are blessed to connect with him daily. From Cory’s perspective, the sun and the moon and the stars rise and set around Kellen, so he lives for his calls every day and getting to FaceTime weekly. Cory (27) is our rock star. Without him, we wouldn’t have a very interesting story to tell. You’ll learn more about him through the blog but let me address a couple of frequently asked questions.
Q. What is Cory’s diagnosis? A. We never got one. Six trips to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and it was never discovered. We may decide to do some testing in the future since technology has advanced so significantly, but for now, we call it Cory Syndrome and we think it carries the most amazing characteristics!
Q. Did you know ahead of time, or when did you know? A. We did not know ahead of time. We did all of the usual testing, but because it wasn’t anything obvious, there was no way to know. Answers unfolded very slowly, but Cory was about 8 months old when we got serious about trying to figure it out because he wasn’t sitting yet (and hadn’t hit a single milestone to that point).
We live in a world where the label ‘special needs’ feels like a death sentence. I dream of a world where children with special needs are received with joy—just like any child. It’s all about perspective. If we viewed all children the way we view children with special needs, it would be silly, but think about it…
“You’re expecting? I am so sorry! Kids are SO expensive, and you’ll lose all of your free time. You won’t be able to go on vacations because it’ll cost so much and if you do, they won’t be the vacations you want to go on, you’ll have to accommodate your child. And their stuff! It’ll take over your house and you won’t be able to have nice things because they’re messy and touch everything… ”
Absurd, right? Well it should be equally ridiculous to think having a child with special needs is terrible. Raising any child is hard yet some people go through heroic efforts to get pregnant and are overjoyed when it happens. Their kids grow up and some parts are awesome and some parts are hard (for some, really, really hard). It is no different when having children with special needs.
There is a great poem I think describes this well. It’s called Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley. I haven’t obtained the rights to it so I would encourage you to google it. What it boils down to is that having a child with special needs is not bad, it’s not sympathy worthy, it’s just different but frankly, if you have more than one child, raising each one is different.
I hope after hanging out in the blog for a while you’ll realize that having a child with special needs is not the worst thing that could ever happen, it just might be the best.