11 Years Strong: Navigating Marriage with Special Needs Children

Today marks 11 years since my husband and I said “I Do”. We were young, optimistic and committed to building a life together. A life I don’t think either of us imagined unfolding quite like this.

In hindsight, our pre-marital counseling seems prophetic now. Our pastor had given us a workbook filled with probing questions about our readiness for various difficult scenarios.

One question inquired on how we would handle the birth of a disabled child.

I remember thinking “that won’t happen to us.”

Silly me.

I wish I remembered exactly how we answered that question back then. I remember talking about how we would love our child no matter what - but I don’t remember any part of our answer past that - probably because I was certain that wasn’t going to happen to us.

Regardless of how we answered, I am confident that we couldn’t have grasped the weight of that question 11 years ago.

We couldn’t have imagined how hard the relentless demands of caregiving or the endless stream of appointments are on a marriage. There was no way to prepare for the financial strain, nights devoid of sleep and lack of respite that comes with raising a child with profound autism, severe intellectual developmental disorder, pica, and ADHD.

But here we stand, 11 years later, having truly lived our vows. Parenting a child with developmental disabilities has shown us the depths of "for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health." Through it all, there is no one else I would rather have by my side.

Regardless of how we answered that workbook 11 years ago, I am certain we nailed one part: Brantley is ours, and we love him dearly. Or perhaps, we got two parts iright, the second being each other; because, together we are a united front in life and in the journey of Raising Brantley. #autismfamily #autismlife #autismparents #disabilityparenting