How do you cope?

I don't think I cope. I just live life. It's a wonderful life, actually.

This life was unplanned. I think everyone who lives "unique" lives, live them unplanned. I met my husband, Mike, in a piano bar in 1998. I didn't know he would be my husband when we met. We were friends first. I'll admit I was attracted to him, but his blindness was a definitely a consideration when our relationship reached a serious level. We dated for 4 years before got married. Maybe not a long time if you're really young... but neither of us was really young, not really. We work things out and, for the most part, life is normal; normal for us, at least. Mike does most of the traditionally female duties, laundry (as long as separate the colors from the whites) dishes, etc. and I do more of the male type chores, cut the grass, grill, change the oil. It works. We were already in the process of adopted our visually impaired son (hey, our house is perfectly situated for blind people, we have tons of connections in the blind community and Mike and I even volunteer with an organization that benefits blind children, so why not, right?) when we found out our daughter had progressive, bilateral hearing loss. Cause to stop the adoption? Absolutely not! Not in our minds. We were sad for our daughter. The prognosis hit us hard. But it was the loss of a sense, not a death sentence. And for now, at least, it can be helped with hearing aids.

We say a lot of prayers. I guess you could say that's how we cope. We put our faith in God.