[blparent] family and adoption

Thu Jun 30 17:04:45 UTC 2011

I hope that as Sarah gets older, she will keep on having a good relationship 
with her siblings from her dad's first marriage.  They're 12 and 16 years 
older, and I had wanted to give her a sibling of her own age so that she 
would have someone when her dad and I are gone.  But that doesn't seem to be 
in the cards.

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: "jill" <jillbilly4 at comcast.net>
Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2011 10:21 AM
To: "'NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List'" <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [blparent] family and adoption

> 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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