a kind of personal question, but here goes...

January 29, 2006

Ok...I know this is a personal question, but I'd love to hear from

those who have already worked through this dilemma, regardless of your

decision.

Here's the situation:

Our son Bobby is 29 months old, beautiful, off-the-charts healthy, tall

and strong, has a pretty decent temperament and completely non-verbal.

He was diagnosed as mildly autistic by Dr. Bussey back in

early September. He's doing well in occupational therapy, learning

signs, working on potty-training, and is getting set for the Fayette

County special ed preschool in August. His autism is present in the

lack of speech and being very sensory seeking, and obsessing with

slamming doors and spinning anything and everything. He doesn't seem

to care much about kids his age, but he acts like he likes other people

from about age 5 on up. He doesn't have fragile X or any other known

genetic conditions to cause the autism, but we have loads of mental

illness in the family and I have a mild learning disability plus some

specific sensory integration issues.

Here's the question:

For those of y'all who had a autistic biological child first and then

had another biological child, how did you arrive at the decision to

have another child (if it was indeed a decision)? How did you deal

with the worries about " it happening again " ? Did it? I'm 34 and I

know the risk of " things going wrong " increase with age, and it took 2

years to have Bobby anyway.

Maybe I'm overanalyzing and obsessing (a trademark behavior of mine)

about this, but I'm rather concerned about managing another child in

the house, especially given how rough Bobby can be. Bobby's learned

the word gentle but he isn't gentle unless we remind him. How did your

first child handle the serious change in the home? We'd always talked

about a second child, but Bobby's special needs (esp. for supervision)

are making me very nervous about the prospect.

Anyway...if anyone has any insight please feel free to email me

off-list. Thanks in advance!

--, the over-analytic, slightly neurotic mother to Bobby.

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