Having more children when your child has severe GDD!?

[lourobert]

My son is 2.2 and severly delayed, he is my first. I had always thought that I would want more kids but of course never thought that it would be that my first born has the problems that he has and now Im wondering whether this will influenece any decision to have more children.

My dad brought it up with me at the weekend after talking about the work we are having doen to our house and how we might need our spare room for a nursery one day and since then its just made me think.

I dont think I could have another until my ds is at school as he needs so much time and attention at the moment that it wouldnt be fair plus theres the aditional logistic of him getting heavy to carry around to think about.

For purely selfish reasons I would like to be a 'normal' mummy doing all the things that I thought i would be doing, like going to the park instead of hospital appointments etc but then there is no guarantee that the next baby would be born without problems.

GOD there is so much to think about. Do we not have more to solely concentrate on my ds but surely he will benefit from having a brother or sister? Do we have two so there are 2 siblings once were gone to look out for him? Is this a reason to have more children??

Its not a decision that I will think about seriously for some time but my dad provoked these thoughts by what he said.

Not specifically looking for any answers just wondered what thoughts or perspectives people may have on the subject

We have Genetic counselling...althought i wrote GDD in the title he has a dx and we have no more chance of having another with the syndrome as anyone else, it isnt the syndrome reoccuring that worrys me but Im not naive enough to know that other things can go wrong.

It is a difficult one and as I say im just thinking about it at the moment. I guess I just always took for granted that I would have 2 or 3 perfectly 'normal' bouncing babies even though Ive worked with kids with sn all my working life it didnt occur to me that it would happen to me.

And also have could i possibly love another human being as much as my ds???? My mum laughs when I say this and she assures me that I will...!

Hi Lourobert,

It's a really tough decision. My "needy" baby is my second, and I often question how we would have felt about having another if he had been our first. DS2 also has GDD, and no other dx other than delayed visual maturation.

I think I would love another baby, but my pregnancies were so medicalised due to a condition I have, and while DS1 is NT, I do blame myself for DS2's problems. We haven't had any genetic counselling but one dr did refer to ds2 as an "accident".

I miss all the normal baby things I did with DS1, but on the other hand, when I did take him to things like signing and gymboree, it just didn't have the same "magic" as it did with DS1 - now whether that's just because it was a case of "been there done that" (read boring second time round , or because DS2 just wasn't / isn't able to get as involved as DS1 was I don't know.

I think we'll have to come to some sort of decision around the end of the year - I am getting to be too old anyway to risk all that can happen if you have children "later", and hopefully by then we will also have more of an idea of reasonable expectations for DS2.

I have a DD who has an unknown genetic syndrome, we always wanted more children, but knew we should wait. Had my DS when she was 5, and started Primary one 2 months after he was born. Now pregnant again, due in May. DD will be 7 1/2 years old and DS will be 23 months. Every pregnancy we have a 1 in 4 chance of same condition, but DD having siblings makes up for it. You will know if it is right for you!!

I guess with me having a dx for my ds it makes the decision a bit more staright forward? Am I right in saying that? Because we dont have the fear of the unknown condition, we know what it is and that my son was just "bad luck" as the genetisist told us .

We know what my daughter has, just no name for her condition. She has a list of problems. Having a name I don't know if it makes it easier or harder to decide whether to have more children.

I guess having a name for a list of signs /symptoms may help to get some indication as to the prognosis for a DC. I'm going off-topic now, but it's the uncertainty with DS, and not knowing if we are choosing the right therapies / programs that are the hard things, and make it hard to decide whether or not to "risk" it again (till DS2's problems became apparent I was quite keen for no. 3).

Our DS with GDD is the eldest, now 5.5yrs. We had DD before we realised how serious his poblems were, then we had DS2 and one more is due in Feb. I think his life is enriched by having siblings although it can be hard watching how different he is to the others, and there's always a point at which they 'overtake' him developmentally which can =be very painful. Then there was also the watching and waiting with the others as the cause of DS1 GDD remains unknown.
Though the other side of this is that we don't have as much time and energy as it has to be shared. Howecer,since we can''t be 110% focussed on him as the others need time, i think this has taken the pressure off of us to be totally focussed on him and trying to push his development and allowed us to enjoy being a family.
It's such a personal decision but I feel the choices we've made have been the right ones for us. I've never really had the urge to do 'normal mummy' things, DS's difficulties have made me better at addressing the individual needs of my other children.
IME I think your mum's right, it's amazing how much you can love all your children and not lose any love for the one you had first!