You always hear that good things come out of bad situations

I had an epiphany last week and I thought I would share it. About 5 years ago I went on bed rest for about 5 weeks - I was pregnant with JJ and was around 30 weeks when I started having pre-term contractions. It was a frustrating period for me because even when I did very little, I would have contractions. I literally had to stay in bed all day. My wonderful mother came and spent about 4 of those weeks with our family. She ran our house well and got to spend a lot of time with my oldest two AnnaLisa (almost 3 yrs old) and Andrew, (1 1/2 years old). One of the things I learned was that sometimes you just have to let other people help you. I had many meals brought in, friends cleaning my house for me, family (beyond my mother) helping with the kids - we were really blessed to know how much we were cared for. I realized that there are times in your life when you just need to allow others to help you.

Then fast forward five years later when I get my epiphany. My mom spent 4 weeks with my kids who have autism (although at the time we did not know this). She went through 4 weeks of an almost three year old saying, "shut the door" and "watch out" and that was it. AnnaLisa never recognized my mother as anything beyond the hired help. She had no personal relationship with her grandmother. My mom does not push herself on other people (which is what you have to do with my kids, and especially at that time), so AnnaLisa never "warmed up" to my mom. It was probably about a month later that we got the diagnosis of autism for AnnaLisa. My mom was totally supportive of it and us. She constantly let us know that we could do this and that she thought we were right. I look back and she was the person that it mattered the most to me that she did not disagree (many did back then, but none that personally knew AnnaLisa).

So I realized last week two of the valuable blessings that came from that trial. I will always be thankful for that time, although it drove me crazy laying in bed for 5 weeks (which ironically I went another 4 weeks, past my due date, and had to be induced to bring JJ into the world). One, that I learned that at times in our life we need to slowdown (and sometimes stop) to take care of ourselves, and 2) having my mom understand the struggle I had with my kids made her ability to support (mostly mental and emotional agreement) make my struggle bearable and I never questioned my mother (or Mother In Law's) support in my journey of figuring out what I needed to do for my kids. This was real important because at first my husband was not able to recognize the magnitude of what we needed to do. They did.