Five and a half years ago, I met my husband online. Karl was widowed with three children. Ashley(now 18), Chelsey(now 16), and Dakota (now 10). I was single and living with my brother helping to raise his 3 children following his wife's death 8 years earlier.
Karls first wife had been dealing with epilepsy and the doctors had ruled that the slight learning disibilites of Chelsey and Dakota's obvious delay's were a cause of her medication. Dakota has never been formally diagnosed with Autism, but he exhibts most of the traits I am familiar with from my earlier work in the developmental disibilities field.
At the time of our whirlwind, distanced romance I really believed i could handle anything God threw at me. I have a strong Christian faith, experience with disabled children, a history of stepping into grieving families and a gift for loving other people's children. Simple right?

Here we are five years later, having added to our troop Isaac 2 and Amelia 6 months. Yes, you are counting right, 5 kids in all. We are doing well considering the obvious challenges that five imperfect children present.
Here is my confession. I struggle with Dakota more than I thought i would. I have a hard time, ok i'm going to say it, loving him. He is 10, but "stuck" at 2. Everyone else absolutely adores him. The entire staff at his grade school think he is the cutest most adorable child ever. Although i care for him every day, I just can't find it within myself to love him. It makes everything about his care more difficult. I've prayed about it. And still i struggle. When we started this 5 years ago, i was going to conquer this. I was determine to see him progress. So many from the outside say he has, some say it's amazing what I've done with him. I can only see that he can sit through an hour and a half of church, can feed himself, and no longer gets into the drawer with the ziplocs. BIG DEAL. I feel like a horrible woman, because i should be able to find some kind of love for this child and instaed i tolerate him, i take care of him, and i think about what the rest of our life will be like changing his diapers.

A friend of mine, a mother of a boy formerly in Dakota's class, comitted suicide last year following her sons death. Although she had other kids she could not cope with living without her son Anthony, a very low functioning disabled 12 year old. Her husband said at the funeral. "She wanted to be with you, but she wanted to be with Anthony too." Here i was thinking the family would grieve, but be somwhat releived following Anthony's death. But no, she couldn't even go on. If any of my other children passed away I would be devastated. If Dakota died i think i would be sad, but i feel horrible, that i don't think i would be devastated. Am I the only one who struggles with these feelings?