Can You Walk? Can You Talk?

When I was pregnant with Gage, Evan came with me to a handful of doctor’s appointments. He was there for the first one, and for our 20 week ultrasound and again for some of the appointments near the end of my pregnancy. At one of those later appointments, my doctor started telling me when I should plan to come to the hospital once labor started. I recall him saying “if you have contractions that are uncomfortable to walk or talk through, that’s a good time to come.”

Evan heard this same advice and interpreted it a little differently than me. The night Gage was born, I had been timing my contractions on and off all day. That evening after dinner, Evan and I took a long walk through our neighborhood and when we got home, my contractions continued getting more intense and closer together. If I questioned whether or not we should go to the hospital, Evan would respond with, “Can you walk? Can you talk?” Since the answer was always yes, he assured me it was not time to go yet.

I love to give Evan a hard time about this. Maybe he was a little extreme with his interpretation of the doctor’s advice, especially considering Gage arrived just a little over 2 hours after I finally insisted we go to the hospital. I’ll tell a completely over exaggerated version of the story, with Evan yelling at me, “Can you walk? Can you talk? Yes?! Then, you’re fine!” and absolutely refusing to give me a ride to the hospital. Truth be told, neither one of us had a clue what to expect or do. Evan would have given me a ride the second I asked, I was just afraid of going to the hospital in the middle of the night for a false alarm. You can read more about Gage’s birth story here.

My over-the-top version of Evan might seem pretty ridiculous, but I’m ashamed to admit, at times, the real version of me is even more ridiculous. In brief moments of self-pity, I’ve compared my situation, my son’s abilities, to others. I know how silly it sounds, to see another child with a disability and my knee jerk reaction is “well at least your kid can…” fill in the blank. It could be any number of things. Like whatever ability I’m choosing to focus on in that instance magically makes that kid’s life easier than Gage’s. “Can he walk? Can she talk? Then they’re fine.” What a foolish sentiment. As if we can rank our struggles. Whether a child has a physical or intellectual disability, or something else or is typically developing, we all have challenges as parents. The problem with trying to figure out who’s got it worse is that nobody wins.

I’ve learned it’s a whole lot more productive to focus on all the reasons our life is good…not just good, but great. Not better than anyone else’s, just great entirely on its own, without comparisons to any standards. I love my kids more than I can put into words, and I’m so proud of them. Not because of what they can do, but because of who they are. The simple fact that I get to have them in my life to love fills me up with so much joy. As we continue on our journey, I hope my immediate response is not to compare our life to others, but to appreciate everyone’s unique situation.

God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. 1 Peter 4:10