Today I got thinking about choices…

I remembered someone telling me years ago that we never had a choice with Emily. She was born with this syndrome and we didn’t know so we had no choice…

I strongly disagreed!

I believe we always have a choice, actually multiple choices…

It’s just that most people can’t see the options in front of them.

For example, when Emily was diagnosed… we chose to do everything we could to give her a great life…

We could have gave her up! Put her in the system and move on with our life. That was an option! Not an option we considered… but the fact that we didn’t consider it doesn’t mean the option wasn’t there.

One of us could have walked out on our family, walked away from the struggles we were facing. We actually talked about it and we both agreed that we were in this for life. Neither one of us wanted to walk out. This was an option, just not one we were interested in.

We could have kept her but not invest any time and energy in helping her grow and learn…. again, not a choice we were willing to make.

We had lots of options, the fact that none of them were attractive to us really helped us make a decision.

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Choices come in various forms!

The thing with choices is that a lot of people don’t see the options right in front of them!!!

Weird but true!!!

Most people don’t realize that from the moment they wake-up for the day, they are making decisions. Get up or not, shower or not, what to have for breakfast and so on…

When Emily was in elementary school, we decided that the middle school in our neighbourhood wasn’t where we wanted Emily to go. Other parents of kids with special needs were telling me how horrible this school was and I couldn’t understand why they didn’t do something about it. This attitude of there is nothing I can do to make school more enjoyable for my kids just amazed me!!!

I started looking into options for middle school when Emily started 5th grade. One year out. Should our out of bound request didn’t get approved, we were willing to sell the house and relocate near the school we picked!

Again, this past January, when we filled our out of bound request for high school, we were willing to relocate in order to be sure Emily gets in the high school we wanted for her. The high school where her classmates from the last 3 years would be going to. We wanted her to stay with them.

We got the high school approval letter on Emily’s birthday this past Tuesday. She is going to the high school we all wanted her to go to.

At dinner on Tuesday Emily was quite happy to tell her Nana that we are not selling our house yet! 🙂

We decided 4 years ago to make sure Emily was going to a school where she would be accepted and treated with respect… we did what needed to be done because we decided it was worth it!

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Choices!!!

They are a great thing!

We make them every single day…

Do you see the choices in front of you or do you go along your day assuming you have no options?