defeating the mom guilt

I'm sure that anyone who has a child who has differences struggles with this from time to time.  Right now, I am struggling with it.  I have a child with *mild* health problems, and another with learning challenges.  It has been an interesting month for me here so far, with Missa trying to get out of doing her math and reading because it is difficult with her dyslexia, and then last week Kimi's breathing started acting up on us.

With Missa and her differences, we've understandably had to figure out EVERYTHING for schooling so that she could learn effectively without having too many issues with retaining the material.  Traditional curricula doesn't always work with her, and I've had to search for just the right fit in each subject or come up with something on my own that will work with her.  Thankfully, her sisters are all more typical learners, and the materials that work for Missa work beautifully with her sisters as well because they embrace multiple learning styles at once (we like multi-sensory approaches that use auditory and visual methods along with manipulatives and hands-on activities).  But I still feel guilty sometimes over her difference in learning.  My mother doesn't help any with this guilt, she told me once that dyslexia and other learning disabilities are either lazy parenting/teaching/learning or caused by not picking one program and sticking to it 100% (changing styles because one approach doesn't work, which is something a LOT of homeschoolers do).  She knows that I went through several programs in each subject before finding something that would work well with Missa, and knew it even back when she said that to me.  My mother-in-law also doesn't help much either, although her latest comment could be taken as a compliment I think.  She's trying to convince Missa currently that she doesn't have dyslexia because "you read just fine honey."  The last time the girls were over with her, she watched them for a few hours so Scott and I could go to lunch and Babies R Us without having to deal with all the hassle of keeping 4 kids occupied and happy (meaning I got a meal I LOVED and don't get often at our favorite restaurant, and I got to casually browse all the different areas and get ideas for our nursery and baby boy at the store without being rushed).  She doesn't approve of homeschooling, so she quizzes the kids every chance she gets.  She tested their reading that day, and decided that they are all doing really well despite not going to a real school and having mommy insisting on playing schoolteacher instead of growing up and coming to her senses about it (yeah we've gone around about this in the past, I'm no longer allowed to discuss it with her per Scott's instruction).  Now, last school year I had mono for 6 months, and the ONLY thing I did with her and her sisters was reading.  I read to them, they read to me, we listened to audio books, we watched movies and tv shows with the closed-captioning on.  Missa jumped during that time from a late K level in reading to now being able to read at a mid to late 4th grade level.  She's in 3rd grade.  That's something to be proud of, and you KNOW I'm proud of her for working so hard.  She's reading the books from our history core (well some of the easier ones, currently she's slowly working through the Usborne Greek Myths book) and she's enjoying reading for fun AND for learning.  That was my goal for last school year and this year, now I need to set a new goal for her learning lol

Then there's Kimi's breathing.  She has asthma, and was diagnosed a couple years ago.  Again, my mom said that I caused it by giving her an inhaler under doctor orders when she had yet another case of bronchitis.  For over 2 years I've struggled with this one before I finally decided that my mother has no clue what the hell she's talking about and I've stopped listening to 99% of what she thinks about stuff (she also told me this week that at 24 weeks pregnant, I've gained too much weight and that I'm fat, I gained 12lbs and am thrilled with it, I think she's spent too long on her diet and has lost touch with reality).  Anyway, this past week Kimi has had a major flare-up with her asthma and I've had a hard time getting it back under control again.  I had her at the pediatrician's office during their walk-in clinic hours on Saturday (Scott had been taking the van to work after blowing out a tire in his car, we had to wait for payday to replace it, so I had no way to get them to the doctor until then) and her asthma didn't disappoint us.  She had an attack in the waiting room, and it sent the nurse AND the doctor both running to stabilize her again.  We left with a nebulizer and a bunch of medications to get her back in check again.  This morning she finished her round of Prednisone, so now she's down to just her 2 daily meds (one pill and one breathing treatment) and her albuterol breathing treatments as needed.  Yesterday she didn't need any albuterol at all, which was a first in the last week and a half.  I think we are starting to get a handle on it again.

But fighting mom guilt is hard.  I feel guilt daily when Missa struggles with her schoolwork, wondering if my mom may be right and I did cause her learning differences by switching around programs so much before we settled last school year on the materials that we are using now.  I struggle now especially with the what-ifs and wonder if my pushing for a low-intervention birth with Kimi could have caused all her breathing problems.  She was diagnosed with severe meconium aspiration syndrome at birth and needed deep suctioning to get all the meconium from her airways, and has been rattly and suffered with breathing problems from the start.  I catch myself several times daily thinking that if only I had agreed to Pitocin in my IV and allowed them to break my water before we did, maybe we could have prevented it from happening.

Yup, the mommy guilt monster stinks.  I know none of these challenges are my fault, but still I blame myself because I'm mom.  The last thing that any parent wants is to have a child with any special needs, and when it does happen we struggle with blaming ourselves over things that are out of our control.  I see my girls, all of them, as unique special blessings from God, and would never trade any of them for another child, nor would I ever wish that any of them were different than they are now.  Yet, I still struggle with the nagging guilt that plagues moms everywhere over everything.  I may not have a child who is non-mobile with a feeding tube or one with a severe birth defect, but I still fight with the guilt every day.  I look at my friends who have children with more needs than my girls have, and know how blessed I am.  I also see them as a source of inspiration.  I look up to those moms, knowing that their burden is so much bigger while they go through life with grace and strength that I have not yet found.  I see what I need to find in them, and pray that I can find it soon.  Especially now that I've entered a stage where I'm too paranoid to leave the nebulizer at home even just to take my kids to Pizza Hut for their monthly Book-It coupon pizzas (and I plan to tote it with us here shortly for a trip to the grocery store, hey its raining right now and a chill could trigger an attack, but not going isn't an option as I'm out of a few things that we need for supper tonight).