Angry

The awful woman who hurt my Hannah has been arrested, is in jail and awaiting trial.... my thoughts on this  are simple... I'm glad....I'm glad she is in jail, I am glad she will not be able to work with children ever again. I have now entered the stage of being so angry I almost can't contain it. How dare you put your hands on my daughter... how dare you look me in the eye and tell me you want to help her, how dare you. I can hardly even look at the mug shot without feeling so much anger. I would like 5 minutes with her.....just so she would have to look me in the face. I would love to ask her what she was thinking...what made her think she had any right to pull Hannah's hair or kick her or tape her hands to teach her how it feels... honestly if you are that miserable in your job find another one... these are defenseless children with disabilities... these are kids who can not protect themselves...these are kids who trusted you... parents who trusted you...... how dare you hurt them... I am really angry. This has caused us so much pain... I'm angry that she has put me in a very uncomfortable position...I am angry, I now have to deal with the media, get a lawyer, talk to a ton of law enforcement offices... people I probably would have never spoken too... I'm angry I have to hear what she did to my daughter every time I watch the news... how dare you put my family through this. This has just begun... this horrible nightmare of a  situation will be haunting us for months... I will have to hear what she did to Hannah over and over again. I am also so sad.. I am sad teachers hurt kids..I'm sad it is even possible for a child to experience abuse by anyone...I'm sad Hannah had to go through this.. I'm sad I didn't know. I know things happen for a reason... I know I will lose sleep trying to find the reason..I know we will all come out of this smarter and stronger but I still don't want to be dealing with this. I have done one phone interview with a local news channel, I sent an email statement to another, I really don't need my face and name all over the news. This is truly going to be a day by day process, and I know there will be days I am a lot happier than I am right now and I know there will be days I am a lot sadder and a lot angrier. I will just trust god and pray for strength and guidance. Again I would like to say thanks to you all for the support we have received. It's good to know there are still more good people than bad! Bless you all!

  Liz

Devastated

My goal for the next few blog was going to about accepting the difference we all have, about how special each child is and what each one has to offer, regardless of ability, unfortunately I am going to blog about something so devastating that I am still in disbelief it really has happened. I was contacted by Children protective services Monday night, they told me my sweet Hannah was a victim of abuse, not by me, but by her teacher at school. This morning I met with law enforcement and they informed me of a report filed against the teacher which involved her taping my daughters hands together at the wrist in order to keep her from hitting other students, hitting her in the face with a book because she wouldn't keep the books out of her mouth, kicking her, pulling her hair because she wanted to let Hannah know how it felt, and months of verbal abuse, such as yelling at Hannah and calling her name as well as degrading her and other students in the class. The physical abuse has been happening for a few weeks and the verbal abuse has been happening for months. Typing this almost feels wrong.  I am feeling so betrayed. I feel so angry. I feel so sad that this could happen to my child. Sending your child to school shouldn't be scary, you shouldn't have to worry that the person in charge of them 6 hrs a day 5 days week would hurt them. No matter how hard Hannah can be to deal with at times you NEVER have the right to put your hands on my child (or ANY child) to harm them. The Clearwater police dept has taken the case, they have interviewed all who might have seen something and everyone else involved, the teacher, the principal. The officer told me that he feels very strongly that a crime against Hannah was committed . I was told they have a strong case even without physical signs of abuse, I have a feeling this is going to take a little time to get the situation resolved, but the teacher has been removed from the school until the investigation is completed, but it’s unclear at this moment if she will be terminated.  I have kept Hannah home today at the advise of law enforcement, needless to say  they didn't have to tell me twice. I plan on keeping her home tomorrow as well, I plan on calling the school tomorrow and speak to the principal in hope to get some answers to what will happen on their end. I will be voicing my option that she is terminated for hurting a child, not to mention a child with special needs. I am beginning to feel that if she isn't in the care of someone I am related to she is not safe. We have just had zero luck with the public school system. Prior to this being brought to light, I have been doing a lot of soul searching, the working mom thing isn't something I am happy with at this point. With all the sickness we have been dealing with and with some of the behavior issues we are having. I feel that Hannah is my number one job and making sure she is safe and taken care of is my soul purpose. Working 40 hrs a week (I feel) is preventing me from doing my "real" job.  However the financial burden it would cause us for me to quit working would be anti-productive for her well being.  Because supporting her needs would be more difficult without my income. I want nothing more than to be able to be a stay at home mom and be with her 24/7. Anyone who knows me knows Hannah is my whole world, she is the reason I breathe, she is a gift from god and she is cherished.  If nothing else I have learned that in this day in age NO ONE can be trusted. People now days have not regard for anyone but themselves. I have a lot to deal with in the next few weeks. Something things I have already give to god and I have been praying for his guidance since this situation was brought to my attention. Without his guidance I know I would have already done 101 stupid things to make the situation worse and make me look just as bad as the teacher looks. Cameras in classroom is a cause I was 100 % in support of but now you will all here me advocate that a lot more. Thanks to everyone who has already commented on the early status on FB. I am so blessed to have such supportive friends.

Liz 

Holland

In honor of World Down Syndrome day 3.21.13, I thought I would share one of the 1st things I found when researching DS while I was pregnant with Hannah.   Although I wasn't 100 % sure Hannah would have Down Syndrome I wanted to learn as much as I could. I remember a single tear running down my face while reading it and later found it to be so very true, but so beautiful.

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to imagine how it would feel.
It is like this...

When you're going to have a baby, it is like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The Gondolas of Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It is all very exciting.

After months of anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bag and off you go. Several hours later the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, 'Welcome to Holland'. 'Holland? ' you say. 'What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! ! ! I am supposed to be in Italy. All my life I have dreamed of going to Italy! '.

But there has been a change in flight plan, they have landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they have not taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It is just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met before. It is just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy. It's less flashy than Italy. But after you have been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, and Holland even has Rembrandt's.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy and they are all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, 'Yes, that is where I was supposed to go, That's where I had planned'.

And the pain of that will never, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss, but if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't go to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland. 

Written by Emily Perl Kingsley (in 1987) 

God is so good

 Normally I write about Hannah, but the last 2 weeks for our family has been a bit on the roller coaster ride. My dad was scheduled for a biopsy last Wednesday, he had one back in July and all when smoothly, however this time was much different. There were complication and his lung was punctured, which in turn made it collapse, the biopsy was done because there was a large mass on his left lung.... seen on an X-ray that in itself was scary. The worry Dad might have cancer was so devastating...then when we spent 9 days in the hospital with daddy was almost more than Mom and I could handle. Healing for daddy when slow, days passed one by one and we just waited. This past Wednesday we received the results from the biopsy.... that day was one of the most stressful days of waiting in my whole life. About 11am we received the wonderful news the mass was NOT cancer! It felt as though the world was lifted off my shoulder. I spend 7 days praying as hard as could, asking the lord to please heal dad and we would receive good news regarding the biopsy. I spend most nights up thinking about all the things daddy has done for me, all the special times we had shared.... he is the first man i ever loved, he is the one who let me sleep on his belly, taught me to ride a bike , always tells me how proud he is of me , taught me to be a strong women who speaks her mind. He gave me away on my wedding day... I was praying he would be around to teach Hannah some of the things he taught me! I have always been a daddy's girl and I wasn't ready to give that up! As I reached out to FB, I was so humbled by all the wonderful friends/ family I have who prayed for daddy, who offered well wishes. I truly felt the lord presents and healing for daddy. I know I have soo many wonderful people to thank, I truly know it was because of all those prayer daddy is ok! I am just looking forward to many more memories and special moments for our family and especially Hannah and her Poppy!

Liz

Goodbye 2012

As we say goodbye to 2012… we look forward to the new year, 2013… we look forward with a renewed hope , a strong desire thing will get better or stay good, the issues from the past year slowly fade to memory and we look forward to new and exciting experiences….  I am hopefully optimistic for growth and maturity… things with behavior will get better; we will start to understand how important it is to listen to adults so we will stay safe. The past few months have been pretty good. Things seem to be turning around… Thanksgiving and Christmas were wonderful. We did a lot of stuff as a family and we learned some new things. Hannah turned 6! We had a party....with a bounce house and friends, cake and gifts. We celebrated for 6 days... since we were off school for thanksgiving break! We did a lot of fun things. As Christmas got closer Hannah got very excited … we looked at a lot of Christmas lights. We decorated 3 Christmas trees… we baked a ton of cookies and we had a lot of fun, very special moments I will always cherish. Hannah also received an academic award from school. She is excelling full speed with all the academics. I am very proud how smart she is and how hard she works on her school work. There is so much for us to be thankful for, we tend to lose sight of the good stuff sometimes, because the “bad”  stuff clouds our vision. I think this year we will focus on the good things and we will learn to deal with the “bad” with less stress. Hope everyone has a wonderful 2013!

Liz

Pumpkin Patch

Last Saturday we ventured out to the pumpkin patch/ festival  about and hour south of us. It was a nice day, a little chilly, and kind of fall like outside, strange for Florida, but a welcome change. Hannah was very excited about the trip, which made me very happy! Normally she wants to stay home! We went on the hay ride and walk through the pumpkin patch, we looked at crafts and played on the play ground......  we visited the farmers market and  visited the petting zoo. (One of  Hannah's favorite things to do!)  After about an hour and a half , Hannah started getting a little cranky..... and started acting as though she had enough. The amount of people there had doubled, maybe tripled by then. I think she has some  crowd anxiety issues that are surfacing... but all in all it was a nice day we got to spend as a family. Here are a few picture we took while we were there.

Liz

Ready or Not Here I come!!!!

The 21st of November 2006 after dinner my water broke... but i wasn't having any contractions..... I thought maybe something was wrong... why am I not in labor? After Evan made me wait 30 minutes we were on our way to the hospital!   After arriving at the hospital I was set up in a room and the waiting began....... 8pm till 630am the next day nothing happened..... not one contraction. She was moving a ton. she was "running from the heart monitor. which lead to an alarm going off every time it would loose her heart beat, by 3 am I was well train on how to reset the alarm and re ajust the monitor to pick her up again. 7 am  on November 22  I was induced.....  for 12 hrs and 19 mins I had contraction after contraction...... I started regretting wanting them to start!  7:19 pm Wednesday, November 22, 2006, (the day before Thanksgiving) we finally met our Baby girl. She was perfect. She had a ton of hair, she was small, and fragile.  After the doctor laid her on my chest, a held her there a few minutes  then a nurse came over to take her and weigh her..." 6lbs 13oz........... 21 inches long.....and  "I'm sorry your baby has Down syndrome"! " REALLY???? I was so angry, this was a special moment..... this was the birth of my 1st child..... Isn't that the doctors job, to inform the parent if there is an "issue" anyway..... I told the doctor to give me my baby and get that nurse out of the room...... she left and we went back to being proud parents of a beautiful baby girl who happened to have Down Syndrome.  Thursday was Thanksgiving, that was one of my favorite Thanksgivings... We ate Hospital Turkey in a small room with 12 people I knew and about 5 I didn't. ( Waiting Room).  Friday afternoon I was discharged but Hannah wasn't!  

She was "rushed" off to the NICU... Which would be our home for 3 more days! She was having an issue regulating her body tempature . Instead of 98.6 she would drop to 96 or 97 degrees, she was hooked up to a ton of monitors, there were about 10 cords attached to her, such a hard site to see..... I cried for about 20 mins uncontrollably , my husband cried, he never cry's,  it broke his heart to see his baby girl like that!   All we wanted was our baby girl to come home. So for the next 3 days we spent all day at the hospital, in the NICU with Hannah. I know there are a ton of family's that through so much more but at that moment it was the worst thing that could be happening!   Monday  November 27 @ 8pm we brought our Hannah home for the 1st time, the next 3 days were kind of rough, she peed everywhere 3 or 4 times and spit up on me about 5 or 6 times and wouldn't sleep unless I held her, but after those few days we learned to live with each other and thing were wonderful!!

Liz