The 5% child - parenting when you didn't know any better

We called our first baby the 5% child.  If something happened to 5% of children it happened to her.  I have only one working falopian tube so even making her took longer, I had hyperemisis (lots of vomiting the whole pregnancy), she was born without a suck reflex and on and on.  It was mostly crazy caos, with a very peaceful home birth in the middle with  little cats keeping me company.  We hoped that was the end of the 5%, but it wasn't.

Joel at that point was diognosed with chronic depression (later ADD and chronic fatigue).  I have anxiety and learning disabilities.  We hoped to have a child with none of our problems, or at least just a few.  From the time she was tiny, S was very unhappy and had a hard time sleeping.  We now know that she had anxiety and sensory processing disorder so that the world was a pretty scary place for her - even when we were "connection parenting."  Maybe from the time she was eight months she would cry and cry until we could figure out what upset her and name it and then she would go to sleep "are you worried about the dog we saw today?"  Over and over.

We made a decision, that having children would not just be an add on to our lives, but that we would focus on parenting and building a connection.  We didn't know how much this approach was in line with traditional aboriginal ways of childrearing.  It just felt right.  While it hurt a lot at the time, I remember days where the only good thing I could think of what how nice the hot water of my bath felt, I don't regret it. 

I think about how lonley and scared S was, even with a parent there all the time and a very calm life and think about how much worse things could have been for her.  We weren't perfect parents but I feel like I gave as much as I could and I have no regrets.  While I wish I had read things like Leah Dorion's Thesis on raising Cree and Metis children or Maria Anderson's book about life stages of native woman, because we tried to be concious about the choices we made as parents and we listened to our intuition and child in what she needed I don't feel shame.

I try to remember that for the whole of this journey to walk the good red road.  You did the best you could and now you know better and there is no shame in who you were.