Emetophobia and adopting a baby

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I would like to bring up a child, preferably a little girl. But my only option is to adopt because my partner can't have any more children, and I don't want to pass on Autism to my child. He wouldn't mind bringing up another child, but obviously we want to get ourselves settled together and get married before bringing a baby into our lives.

But the only problem is I have severe Emetophobia. If somebody has a tummy bug or mentions that someone else has a tummy bug, I become really anxious and keep washing my hands, then I start thinking I have the bug and I don't go out the house for a few days because I think I'm going to be sick or have diarrhea in public. I also have a small gullet so I find it very difficult to bring up vomit, which makes me lack oxygen.
So I don't quite know what would happen if my own child gets a tummy bug. I am most probably immune to those 24-hour bugs, so if my child got one of those I probably wouldn't catch it. But all children get one of those really strong stomach viruses at least once, where they are sick for a week with severe diarrhea and you have to call the doctor. My mum said that when my brother was 2 he caught a really bad stomach flu, and usually my mum and dad could fight those things off, but this time everybody in the house caught it and were all ill - even the cat.

So what will I do if this happens? What do other parents here do when your children catch a stomach flu? Do any parents here have a phobia of sickness? Does your phobia make your body to extra work to reject the virus?

Any stomach bug my kids have ever had lasted 48 hours max. They have never been severely ill with a stomach bug or diarrhea. A key thing is to withhold food pretty much right away and only give pedialyte or similar.

I worry about getting ill, but I subscribe to the school of "What ever happens happens". IF I get sick I get sick. One precaution i do take is that if the kids get sick, I restrict my own diet. I'll eat the brat diet myself so that if I DO get ill, it's not as bad. That way I'm not yakking up nachos or anything. I have an issue with vomitting as well. I do not suffocate, however I vomit through my sinus cavity (aka, the nose) which is truly awful. It burns horribly and leads to massive infections after the fact. The brat diet certainly makes this less bad. I'll be honest though, I've picked up more illnesses at work than from my own kids.

I work pretty hard to avoid getting ill from my kids, but I wouldn't call it a phobia.

Still, as a parent, you have to be able to let go of that. When your baby has the flu, he needs you to sleep with him and, basically, you will get thrown up on. Handling that is part of being a parent. You can't let your phobias get in the way of what the child needs. It is quite a parenting moment when you are having a date with the porcelain throne and your toddler comes in needing something from you NOW ... There will be no days off from the job, and you can't take that out on the children. I guess you learn to see the humor in it all.

I would caution you on adopting with the idea of avoiding an ASD child. Reading this board all these years, I feel that parents who have ASD are often best matched to ASD kids, while an NT child seems more likely than an ASD one to resent their parent's quirks. Of course, no one can ever predict how well a parent and child will be matched, or who will end up making a good parent, but be sure that when you decide to raise a child, it won't be because of what you want, but because you truly believe you can give the child what she wants.

I would say that you should find professional help for your own issues before adopting a child, and try babysitting or something to see how it goes. You can't avoid being sick when you have a kid. Period. (Though you will very rarely if ever get seriously ill.)

Also, I concur with what DW says about avoiding kids with AS - another thing I note is that it seems a LOT of the adopted kids from families I know have some form of AS...I am guessing that there is a percentage of birth parents whose social/emotional issues led to them having an unwanted pregnancy.

Parenting is a gamble no matter what way you do it. If you aren't prepared for anything that comes your way, you probably should think carefully about being a parent.

**disclaimer: too tired and drained to properly edit and make my language "nice". Please forgive in advance or skip the rest of this LOL!**

I do not have a phobia, but I am a sympathetic puker. All I have to do is see or smell vomit, or hear someone wretching, and I vomit. It is very problematic, as I have worked in healthcare and it is impossible to avoid.

Except with my own kids.

I can easily reach out to catch their vomit in my hands and clean it all up without any queasiness at all.

I don't know why this is, but for some reason, it is just different with my kids.

I find this is true with a lot of things. Hyperactive kids tend to get on my nerves...except mine. Loud kids get on my nerves...except mine.

I'm not saying it's not a good idea to consider these things before actually having kids. But I am saying I have found myself to be pleasantly surprised on a number of occasions with just how well I can tolerate things I didn't think I would be able to tolerate.

Regarding sickness, I sometimes get what my kids get and sometimes I don't. But honestly, I tend to be more worried about them not getting what I have if I am sick.

Last comment...I understand that you are in a position in which a birth-child is not possible. But I want to say it anyway...having an ASD kid is not a bad thing IMHO. I am actually glad that my kids are not NT. First, it helped me learn what was "wrong" with me all those years but more importantly, we "get each other" in a very meaningful way. I like that we have our little "inside joke" that makes perfect sense to us, but is meaningless to anyone else.

Best of luck to you in your decision! I love being a mom!

During my teens and most of my adult fears my whole world revolved around this fear. There's nothing worse than having a real phobia - not just a healthy dislike or rational fear, but something you find so terrifying you can't live a normal life - that you can't completely avoid. In fact I don't understand how people can have kids at all due to thins fear, but I guess unlike me they must really want them. My phobia isn't as bad as it used to be, but I still have no desire to be trapped on a plane or a ship because of it. I also hate it when other people throw up, so even if I don't someone else might, and when when you're stuck on a plane or boat you can't escape it.

Since phobias are normally treated by gradually desensitizing someone to their fear, I don't want to even think how they would do that for emetophobia. In fact phobia treatments sound almost like some Middle-Age torture until the person has come to terms with it.

BTW, I resent you saying you don't want to pass your autistic gene onto a child. I get it, if your kid gets an ASD, the world is over. Ugh...

Ohh, I've been through this before here. I don't want a child on the spectrum, end of story. Asperger's has done nothing but make my childhood a misery, and so I don't want my child to feel that unhappy either. And no, I don't go by the stupid ''if you're a good parent you ASD child will be happy and will adapt to life well'' cliche. You can't always blame the parents on how your disabled children turn out emotionally. You can't always control what goes on with the child at school, like with making friends or being bullied. As children get older you cannot force other kids to be friends with your child, and you can't always stop bullies from bullying your child, and you could do anything for your child to make her happy but all she may want is a friend of her age to play with and do all the normal stuff typical kids do.

I mean, my boyfriend has got 3 teenage children, and they are all NTs (in fact my boyfriend's whole family seem to be NTs without no emotional or intellectual issues). His youngest daughter is still at school and her and her friends are into beauty and want to study hard so they can get into college and study health and beauty then go on to do their career they want to do. Even if her friends pull out, she's still determined to do it. And his son has left school, and I think he's the one my boyfriend worries about the most because he's not really that mature for his age, but he's passed his driving test and wants to be a lorry driver, and he's always out with his mates and now has a girlfriend. And his eldest is happy too. She is married now and has just been promoted in her job, and is now senior management at a private care home. She's very confident too, and wants to earn the money to go travelling around the world with her wife (she's gay) and their friends, who are also very decent people in good jobs.

Yes, three NT children, and yes they have their own problems and my boyfriend and his x-wife have probably had some issues with them growing up, NOT saying bringing up NT children is all plain-sailing, and also NOT saying that Aspie children can't succeed like my boyfriend's NT children, but I just want a kid that goes to mainstream school, fits in and makes friends with other children, develops typically like her peers, and if I help her enough with things like homework and try to do what's best for her, she will probably do well. Usually I hear so much on here that NT children can be affected negatively by their upbringing, but me and my boyfriend are decent people and we will bring up our kid just as good as the next parent.

Anyway, my mum is NT but I've always had a really close mother-daughter relationship with her, and we're still very close now even though I am out and about more with my boyfriend, and my relationship with my mum is actually more closer than what my NT cousins are to their NT mums (my mum's sisters). So there, an NT child and an Aspie mum (and vice versa) can have a close bond.