[blparent] family and adoption

Thu Jun 30 16:21:51 UTC 2011

I thought my siblings were bad... I am so sorry for the way they have
treated you.  From your posts, I can tell that you love your Sara very much.
I only have to put up with the treatment of blindness must be catching.  My
siblings pick and choose when they want to include me and my family.  I
rarely get invited to Christmas, but might get invited to Thanksgiving or
the 4th of July.  Our parents are deceased, and my siblings are 14 and 10
years older than me.  I have always figured that it was either the blind
thing or the age difference in age which caused the distance.  I can say
that they have never doubted to my face my ability to work or have a family.
As a matter of fact, my brother was quite aggravated that I could stop
working and start drawing my social security.  I told him it was just one of
the perks of being vlind!
Jill

-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Jo Elizabeth Pinto
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 2:21 PM
To: NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List
Subject: Re: [blparent] family and adoption

How awful and unprofessional that doctor and pediatrician were!  This is 
still America, for God's sake!

I have had pretty much nothing to do with my parents and siblings since I 
was pregnant with Sarah, and till they change their attitudes, which isn't 
likely to happen, I will continue to have little to no contact with them. 
It's terribly sad that Sarah barely knows her grandparents and uncles and 
aunts and cousins, most of them living less than half a mile away from us, 
but it's at least as much their loss as it is ours.  I found the 
professionals at the hospital and the pediatricians since then very helpful 
and supportive of me as a mom, blind or not.  But doubts hurt the worst when

they come from those who are closest to us.  My family had always been the 
kind who said I could do anything I put my mind to, but I guess they drew 
the line at raising a child.  I hear through the grapevine sometimes that 
they snipe and whine now and then about Sarah not being on a schedule--she 
is on one, but she tends to stay up later at night than some kids her age 
and get up later in the morning--or that she's not potty trained yet at 
three and a half, or that she took too long to lose the bottle and pacifier,

or that she didn't eat enough or ate the wrong things at some family 
function like a funeral or a birthday party that we all needed to go to. 
But proof positive for me that I can successfully raise a child is that 
Sarah is three and a half, insanely healthy, bright, social, , and 
talkative, with no major accidents or disasters in her past.  Not to say 
that a trip to the emergency room or a serious mishap necessarily makes a 
bad parent, but my dad and brother and sister told me horror stories of the 
probable choking, drowning, abducting, falling, running over with a car, 
etc, etc, that would likely happen to Sarah if she stayed with me, and none 
of those things have come to pass, thank God.  My sister said she knew blind

parents had raised children before, but that I needed to think really hard 
and decide if staying with me would be the absolute best option for my 
child, because the priority had to be on the needs of the child and not on 
my feelings.  At this point, if I were speaking to her, I could honestly 
tell her that yes, after much thought and years of building a relationship, 
I do believe that being with me is the absolute best thing for Sarah, and 
for me too.

Jo Elizabeth

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, 
unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into 
advance."--Franklin D. Roosevelt

--------------------------------------------------
From: "jan wright" <jan.wrightfamily5 at gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 12:34 PM
To: "blparent" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [blparent] family and adoption

> While my family questioned my capabilities, they eventually had to
> leave me alone because i was determined and had asked them to leave if
> they could not say anything nice.
> But, i had a doctor who, after i had my fourth, suggested to my
> parents that they get a lawyer and try to have me sterilized.
> And, I had a pediatrician who suggested that i give my fourth child up
> for adoption. She knew a mother who was bored and looking for a baby
> to adopt.
> A strange twist, when Kyler (my fourth) was 2yo, I met this woman. she
> adopted two other children and had two teens. honestly, she was not
> very  emotionally stable and she had this hero horn blowing complex.
> And, to top it off, she was not very blind friendly and had a 4yo
> blind adopted daughter. i found out later that she was the one who my
> pediatrician was suggesting adopt my son.
> UGGGG!
>
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