There is nothing simple about raising a medically complex child.
We carry emergency plans the way others carry wallets. Med lists are memorized. Hospital routes are second nature. We measure time in seizures, appointments, medication schedules, and recovery windows.
Early Monday morning, after our 10-year-old autistic son was sedated for stitches following a seizure fall, he was sick. My husband held him upright while he vomited. I grabbed towels, trying to catch what I could. We moved in sync—no discussion, no drama, just instinct and practice.
And I thought about our marriage.
It isn’t glitz and glamour. It’s not candlelit dinners or perfectly curated photos. It’s standing shoulder to shoulder in hospital rooms. It’s one parent holding a sick child while the other manages the aftermath. It’s eye contact that says, I’ve got him. I’ve got you.
Marriage, in this life, is partnership under pressure.
It’s quiet strength.
It’s showing up, again and again, when the night is long and the stakes are high.
Raising a medically complex child reshapes everything. It tests you. It refines you. It strips things down to what matters most.
And at the end of nights like that, when the towels are in the wash and the house is finally still, you realize:
Love here isn’t flashy.
It’s steady.
It’s resilient.
It’s built in the hard moments no one sees.
On Sunday, we’ll mark 13 years married and will joke that it feels like forever.
Not because it’s been easy—but because we’ve lived a lifetime in those years.
Forever, it turns out, isn’t about time.
It’s about choosing each other—in the ER, in exhaustion, in the aftermath—over and over again.
Originally published on the author’s Facebook page
by Andrea Smolin 
by Michaela Gasseling 
by Jaymi Torrez 
