Cerebral Catholic Dad

I can remember being 15 or 16 years old and asking my physical medicine and rehab physician, Dr. Josh Alexander, if I would be able to be a dad one day, or if my cerebral palsy would impact fertility.

“If you want to be a Dad one day, Michael, there’s no reason you couldn’t be. You would be a great Dad, I am sure,” he told me.

I was in high school when some people began dating and forming romantic relationships. I naturally started to wonder whether romance, marriage, and family were in my future. I also had no idea at that time if CP affected fertility—it essentially does not, although women with CP may require medical care to help manage spasticity, maintain mobility, and manage other issues during pregnancy.

As it turned out, I didn’t have a serious, long-term relationship until I met my wife, Kimberly, at age 26. Before meeting Kimberly, I tried online dating and went on several awkward first dates. Despite full disclosure of my CP and its impact on my speech, gait, and fine motor skills, many women were completely caught off guard or asked awkward questions. (As my 8^th grade home economics teacher said, “Reading is ESSENTIAL.” The phrase was from a corny 1985 video on the topic. Don’t ask why I remember that. And yes, back in 2000, home-ec class was still a thing.)

One woman even asked, “So um…does everything work down there?”

Had I not been raised with three older sisters and a Dad who drilled “ALWAYS be a gentleman” into my head since I was 8 or 9, I probably would have come back with some smart-aleck innuendo about going home to find out.

There wasn’t a second date with that woman. I can’t say I even remember her name.

I moved to Richmond, VA, on October 27, 2012, for a job in a brand-new city where I knew NO ONE, and which I had only ever driven through on I-95 while going to visit family in New England. I was homesick and lonely, and most weekends, I drove back to Chapel Hill to avoid spending the weekend alone.

I was miserable and thinking I had made a terrible mistake applying for a job that a friend in Richmond had forwarded to me on a whim.

At last……

And then I received a message from a woman with a gorgeous smile from Waynesboro, VA named Kimberly, who said she was moving to Richmond for a new job and would be sharing a house with her best friend and another roommate in Bon Air, a suburb of Richmond.

When I met Kimberly for lunch in downtown Richmond on December 14, 2012, it was love at first sight. Kimberly told me months later that she knew on our second date—a cold, rainy night in Charlottesville—that she knew I was the man she would marry. The feeling was mutual. 

I proposed at the Old Well on the campus of my alma mater, UNC-Chapel Hill, 6 months later, on June 14, 2013—the day before my parents’ 40^th wedding anniversary. I think Kimberly’s mom almost passed out when I mentioned that my father is the oldest of 13 and my mother is the 7^th of 8 children, and that I have 65 first cousins, when we went to visit them after getting engaged and started to discuss wedding plans!

We were married May 31, 2014 at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Waynesboro with Fr. John Wall, my confessor and spiritual counselor from the UNC Newman Catholic Student Center, officiating. Kimberly’s mom had been baptized, her parents were married, and Kimberly herself had been baptized at that beautiful stone church nestled in the Shenandoah Valley.

Later that December, we found out Kimberly was expecting our first child in August 2015. I was overwhelmed, excited, and proud.

“Not only did someone marry me, but I got her pregnant! I’m going to be a dad!“

Mixed with

“Oh my goodness, I don’t even quite make $50k, we live in a 1-bedroom apartment, we don’t own a home, and how will we manage??!!!“

Becoming a Dad

Growing up, it seemed like every time my family went to Massachusetts and Maine to visit relatives, one of Dad’s younger siblings had a newborn. I would try to hold my cousins, and inevitably, after a few seconds, they would begin to express discomfort in my palsied, spastic posture and fuss.

In Spring 2015, I remember expressing these memories to my psychologist and wondering whether my son would feel comfortable in my arms or if he’d sense my disability and feel unsafe. How would I change diapers or feed him a bottle?

“Babies instinctively know who Mom and Dad are, Michael. You and your wife will be the constants in his life, and so for him, he will not know any different. He will simply know, ‘this is how Daddy holds me, and it takes Daddy a bit longer than Mommy to change me.”

I tried to take comfort in what my therapist said, but I still had my doubts.

Kimberly stopped working in early July 2015, and our son Patrick Michael was born on July 31. A few hours after he was born, our dear friend, godfather to our 4^th child, Adelaide, and our realtor called me and said,

“Hi! I know Kimberly just gave birth, but uh, your offer was accepted, and you guys need to sign the contract ASAP. May I come to the hospital?”

This is why I retain such a fervent Catholic faith—I have always felt God’s Providence at work in my life, even when things seemed glum. Everything has always worked out better than I could imagine, and as my pastor growing up, Fr. Durbin, would always say after the Prayers of the Faithful during Mass, “Oh Mighty and Everlasting God, You have given us infinitely more than we could ask for—or even imagine. Hear our prayers, through Christ, Our Lord!” That’s a separate blog post, though!

About 5 weeks after Patrick was born, we moved into our first house, a beautiful 4-bedroom colonial in Midlothian, VA. In the ensuing 10 years, Kimberly and I have welcomed 2 daughters and two more sons. Patrick is now 10.5, Eleanor is 8, Joseph is 6, Addie is 4, and Liam is 2.

Here’s a picture of me, my wife, and kids:

In reference to the awkward question on that date about whether everything works, as Maury Povich might say,

“The DNA tests show that the answer to that question is YES!”

Ten Years of Parenting

Over the years, I have had to figure out ways to adapt to make childcare tasks easier. When Patrick was old enough, he’d hold his siblings’ arms down while I changed diapers. I took a little extra time to wrestle squirming kids into clothes or car seats.

When I have been out in public with my kids, I have gotten everything from warm smiles, to “You’ve got your hands full there, kiddo, to catching a woman snapping a photo of my license plate while I was carrying Liam back to the car after taking him out of the carriage and leaving it in the corral in the supermarket parking lot. 

I’m not sure whether she mistook my CP for intoxication and child endangerment or what, but at least the sheriff never showed up at my door. It didn’t feel great.

I am well aware that a Dad with 5 kids is like seeing a unicorn these days, not to mention a Dad with CP and 5 kids. 

In case you didn’t know, in many states, disabled parents can be visited by CPS or lose custody of their kids merely for having a mobility impairment. Adoption agencies can flatly exclude any applicant with a disability, although with new HHS 504 regulations promulgated by the Biden administration, federally-funded child placement agencies must make reasonable accommodations for prospective parents with disabilities.

Parenting with a disability is a challenge, but it has made me realize the inescapable truth behind the saying, “No child is born with prejudice—they LEARN IT.” I have been moved to tears by hearing that my oldest daughter became fast friends in 1^st grade with her classmate who has Down syndrome, or the way all of my kids will instinctively move to assist me with a task, and how they have never had a difficult time understanding my speech.

I am by no means a perfect or even a model father, BUT I try my very best to instill the same values in my children that my parents instilled in my sisters and I.

• Always give thanks to God
• Be kind to all
• Help people when you can— the unhoused individual in the median is Jesus in disguise. “Whatsoever you did for the least of my brethren, you did for me.” If I am stopped at a light with the kids and I have a few bucks, I give it to the individual and tell my kids why.
• Always do your best
• Always be honest— my grandfather always said, “If you always do right, you’ll never go wrong.”
• Always be a gentleman/lady
• My Dad has a saying that I love, “The best gift a father can give to his children is to love their mother.”

I never could have imagined loving someone as deeply as I do Kimberly, nor could I have imagined being a Dad to five kids.

Life is full of challenges for all-and I obviously have more than the average person physically-but nevertheless, in my experience, life is fundamentally beautiful and GOOD!