05/21/2026
My pregnancy with Jared was rough! I had morning sickness throughout the pregnancy. If I ever smelled ground beef cooking, I would immediately suffer waves of nausea! Ironically, I also craved Burger King burgers because they were flame grilled.
Jared was born 2.5 weeks late by induced labor. The two weeks late mark fell on a Friday so the obstetrician chose to wait until Monday to induce labor. They started the pitocin around 7am and I had labor pains all day but very little progress. The doctor decided around 6pm to stop the medication and let me rest and that we would try again the next day. Well, that day, I again labored all day. By 8pm, the doctor finally started talking about doing a C-section but things suddenly started progressing. However, Jared got stuck partially through the birth canal. One of the nurses mashed on my abdomen while the doctor used forceps to pull Jared out. Once he was out, we could see what the issue was - the umbilical cord had been tightly wrapped around his midsection. Everyone was worried and scurrying about but he immediately started breathing and screaming!
Today, Jared has mild hypotonic cerebral palsy which causes him to have low muscle tone plus weak fine motor skills. Handwriting is very difficult, slow and laborious for him so he was able to use electronic devices to do schoolwork per his IEP starting around third grade. He has excellent keyboarding skills and loves to research his favorite topics on the computer! However, he is unable to tie his shoes despite extreme persistence in his attempts to learn. His hands just don't work in the way Jared needs them to so we use elastic laces.
My sweet father thinks that all of Jared's problems are due to the doctor not doing a C-section that first day I was in labor. However, genetic testing has been done and it showed that Jared has XQ13 Duplication Syndrome and males with it have autism and are prone to a litany of other conditions, many of which Jared has. The cerebral palsy, yes, I believe is due to oxygen deprivation during the birth process. Nothing can be changed now, though, and I've always worked with Jared where he is and I don't try to hold him back. I hope that the stories I post about him can be an encouragement to others!
Oh, and his father was very active in his life when he was younger and was present at his birth but we split up in 2009 and he has not responded to requests I've made asking permission to use pictures of him and Jared on this page so I didn't include any of them.
