Adapt...

Greetings friends, family & strangers both near & far..... This post is a bit unorthodox from what I typically write about. It's rather different from what the premise of this blog entails. So......Lifetime TV has a show called "Little Women: ATL" that comes on weekly & I often times view it because like them, I'm an LP as well. This particular episode that caught my attention discussed the birth of Emily's baby JJ, who just before the birth found out for certain via [ultrasound] that the child did indeed have the same mutation of dwarfism as the mother. She underwent a planned C-Section, which by the way was a successful one. But prior to the delivery scene, when the OBGYN informs her of the child's mutation, she's happy to know the child "will be an LP like her"....If you know me, you know that my thinking & feelings immediately went into maximum overdrive!!!! Later on in the episode she discusses with her best friend her excitement about the child "being like her" & how "it's no problem, we'll just teach him to adapt".......Then the scene cuts to her discussing the results of the ultrasound with the child's father, who voiced his hopes of the child having no issues...She's upset that he doesn't see or share her sentiment. He's saying that it may be best that the child is healthy & strong..What's wrong with that?? What's wrong with wanting the child to be strong & prosper? So if I'm correct, her thoughts was that because he didn't want the child to be an LP, she equates his disdain with him not accepting her as an LP. Now I'm sure if you're reading this you might be wondering where I'm heading with this.........As I said after she & her best friend is elated once finding out the results of the ultrasound, my thoughts zoom out of control. Everyone knows how sensitive I am to this very subject considering my recent experience. While many may feel that although I didn't want my baby to carry the OI gene, the mere fact of my getting pregnant knowing the possibility is synonymous to wanting her to have OI. On the contrary, that is NOT my intent. However, I respect one's opinion. Though my baby was born indeed with OI Type 3 like me, I prayed against it during the entire pregnancy because I knew the dark side of OI & the manner in which it rears its ugly head. My wanting her to be free of the disorder is something that I will NEVER regret nor apologize for & as I've written previously, even though I wanted a healthy child, I was ready to accept her in ANY way she came to me.

So one can imagine my haste to Tweet her, with no intentions of being insensitive of course. Here's the exchange....

Also one can imagine my confusion & dismay at her response. I took a few days after this defending myself to her fans, being ridiculed for my statement that I assume many took it as an insensitive remark during a rather difficult time for her & the baby. Now as I've said before, I'm VERY SENSITIVE to this as well as many things since motherhood & so I take my remarks very seriously. Meaning that I think before I speak. I spent the next couple days thinking about my statement, how I wanted others to understand where I was coming from. I received mentions, tweets etc as her fans riddled me with defensive remarks. I attempted explaining myself but to no avail. I even tweeted her again, with my blog handle so that she could SEE that I was speaking from common ground. I wasn't pulling rat-infested comments out of my ass!!!! Again.....to no avail. I simply commented from what I heard on the show, what was aired, from the perception of a home viewer, I re winded, paused, listened again, with the closed caption on the screen just to be certain that I didn't misunderstand or misinterpret her because if I did misunderstand her then I'd  After all this, she never replied back. 

There's nothing wrong with a can-do attitude, especially when you're born into a world that wasn't built for you. I see this in the disabled community often. People [not all] with disabilities seem to carry this chip on their shoulder, subconsciously daring anyone to challenge them to carry it...Due to the obvious limitations. That "anything you can do I can do better, I can do anything better than you" chip, which hinders that person to be realistic. Anything I've ever done in life, I've always kept my disability in my radar or peripheral because while it doesn't dictate my capabilities, it is my reality. Figuring my situation Many [disabled] people that I've encountered have the idea that "I'm just like everyone else" instead of "I'm just like everyone but..." because the truth of the matter is no situation is typical.  I don't know Emily personally, this observation is based off my viewing the show & merely responding to what was aired. Living with similar issues as Emily, I can relate to much of the same experiences as she. I can empathize with her. 

As this blog post was being typed in the many days after this encounter, I found out that sweet baby JJ died of complications relating to his ailments. I was devastated!! In fact I reached out again to share my condolences. I wanted so much to send her a bracelet but I never recieved a response. 

I was torn between sharing this post & keeping it to myself in light of JJ's transition. But I want to share my feelings about this & how deeply it effected me. There are many things in this life that I've done, some good and some not so good. But one thing I will NEVER regret is my feelings towards having a healthy child, free of OI & the devastation that comes with it. No matter how independent I am, that will NEVER interfere with the realities that OI entails....I hope my Haley Jean & JJ have found one another in the Heavens...I know they both are free...They are free!