The Ableize disabled pregnancy and parenting section can be seen at http://www.ableize.com/health-and-fitness/Pregnancy-and-Parenthood/ and I hope your inclusion in this helps drive traffic to your very informative and much sought after information site.

Keep up the good work.

Robin
http://www.ableize.com

A bit of background for everyone – Karin was born with C7 Spina Bifida in August of 1957 in Oberhausen, Germany. She had surgery at 6 days old to protect the spinal cord that protruded outside her body, a tonsilectomy at age 8 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at the Hospital for Sick Children, a Harrington rod implanted at age 13 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at the Hospital for Sick Children and a skin graft done at age 16 in Welland, Ontario, Canada to correct a pressure ulcer. She was permanently confined to a manual wheelchair, and when we met on a blind date in October, 1976, all 6’6″ of me fell head over heels for this 4’10″ angel.

In September of 1978, we were married (in a Catholic Church) despite the reservations of my family, her family and the church. We were among the first group in Canada to take a mandatory marriage preparation course, which only added to our resolve to make our marriage work.

Shortly after we were married, we found out Karin was pregnant! Karin was in heaven, and in May of 1979 our darling daughter – all 7 pounds, 1 ounce – was born. A mere nine weeks later, we found out she was pregnant again (more concern this time) and in April of 1980, our son – a hefty 8 pounds, 5 ounces – was born. And if that wasn’t enough, Karin became pregnant with our third – another daughter – 7 pounds, 13 ounces – a whole lot more concern with pregnancy. There were no traces of any disability in our children – unless you consider lactose intolerance (from their father’s side) a disability.

Karin passed away this past January of squamous cell bladder cancer at the age of 54, having survived long enough to see all three of her children married to absolutely beautiful people, and celebrated the birth of two grandsons. It was Karin’s hope that she would be able to help disabled teenaged girls and women struggling with their fertility and sexuality – and maybe she still can.

The trigger that started this search – my oldest daughter mentioned that she and her siblings were the only children from a disabled parent that she ever met. And she also mentioned that Karin and I were active in the disabled community in Toronto as program directors and volunteers for different agencies in the City, so she grew up around a lot of disabled people.

So here is my shout out to the adult, natural born children of a parent who was disabled at the time of their birth. I believe these people have different issues than those adopted by a disabled parent, or a parent who became disabled sometime after their birth, because their parents were different. I’d love to connect with you here on this board to share experiences with me and my children as well.

If you are a disabled parent of a child and want help, please don’t hesitate to put the call out. I’m not sure I’ll be any help to you (because I’m not disabled myself) but I will try to share Karin’s wisdom with you. Maybe it’ll help and Karin’s legacy will live on.

May God bless everyone who participates on this site because we all know God doesn’t make junk.

John

Thank you!