Guilt

It was Melissa's DNA. Not mine.

The Geneticist told us that Melissa had a balanced translocation. Her DNA was out of order but all the pieces were still there. It has not and would not affect her life. It's only effect was to make her much more likely to have a child with an unbalanced translocation. That is exactly what happened to Dylan.

"Thank god its not me". That was the the first thought that ran through my mind. I had been worried that somehow my DNA had done this to Dylan. I had been having speculative feelings of guilt on the off chance that it was from me.

Immediately following this relief were feelings of guilt, for being grateful not to have caused this.
I could only imagine how Melissa must be feeling having heard Dylan's diagnosis and the news that it was her DNA. She later told me about the intense feelings of guilt that she felt.

My mind began to race as to what I should be thinking and feeling. Should I blame her, yell at her, lash out at her? It took me less than a second to banish those thoughts from my mind. Those thoughts were idiotic and pointless. What happened to Dylan was not her fault. She should not feel guilt over this. It was just a random occurrence that just happened to us. No different than if we had won the lottery. The fact that us having a child like Dylan was a 1 in 15 million chance made me compare it to winning the reverse lottery.

I can only imagine how many marriages have fallen apart when a couple faces this situation. You hear the stories about the mother who completely obsesses about the disabled child and ignores the rest of the world, including her husband. You hear the stories about the fathers who cannot deal with the situation at home and therefore throw themselves into their jobs and spend less and less time at home eventually getting to the point where they become very distant from their family. In both cases, the stories usually end in divorce.

I was determined that would never happen to us. I would not abandon my family. Melissa would not turn into an obsessed parent who ignored everything else in life. We were great together. We could survive this. We would survive this. We have survived this...