Originally Posted by Emmie

I did it. We knew going in that I had pretty severe neurogenic and venous TOS. My having a kid involved a lot of planning ahead of time, and a lot of modification of physical parenting tasks. And my accepting the emotionally difficult fact that yes, when she got to be a certain (still small!) size, I couldn't just lift her like the other moms. We found other ways to get our cuddles in, such as co-sleeping. We found work-arounds for everything -- we had to be quite creative sometimes, and some of what we did looked ridiculous, I'm sure. With the right body mechanics, I could pick her up longer than we expected. And I trained her to climb into her carseat and her highchair (with some assistance from me) at a very young age, because I just couldn't lift her.

Sometimes it was hard, but it was so, so worth it. Before we tried to conceive, I did everything I could to get the condition under control (tons of PT, botox injections), and wean myself off the meds that would have been unsafe during pregnancy. (My husband was already doing the laundry and dishes -- things I can't do -- so that was obviously a big help.) If I had gotten the diagnosis WHILE pregnant, it would have been a totally different thing. I'm sure being prepared ahead of time for all the extra challenges made a big difference.

We are stopping with one, because there is no way I would manage two young kids with my limitations. But we did make it work, and she is the light of my life. And I don't think the TOS has prevented me from being a good parent to her. Not at all.

My symptoms did not get any worse during pregnancy, for what it's worth. They might have gotten like 10% better, possibly because I was just doing less work at home and at the office.