I was blessed with twin girls who were born when my son was 8 1/2. After many miscarriages, a stillborn daughter at 38 weeks, and many fertility treatments; I delivered beautiful, very healthy, full-term girls. The girls grew and developed at a normal pace. They walked at around 15 months and started talking at around 18 months. As a precaution, I had them both evaluated by Connecticut’s Birth to Three System. As I expected, they met all goals and benchmarks that they were tested for, but I needed to be sure.

At an early age, I noticed that one of my twins “S”, was very rigid and inflexible in many ways. She insisted on wearing her favorite footed pajamas almost every day, and wore them even when she outgrew them and her toes poked through the bottoms. I sewed them back together when she became inconsolable because they had holes in them. She was about 3 at the time, but she wore them for another 6 months.

One night when the girls were 3 or 4, I was going out to a church-lady evening (as I called them) and would be back after the girls were asleep. S was not happy that I was going out and wanted me to stay and read stories. So I promised her that if she was still awake when I got home, I would make hot chocolate and we would read together. I returned about 9:00 p.m. and went in to check the girls and as I thought, they were asleep. I kissed them on the head and went to bed myself.

The next morning, I went into the girls’ room to wake them up. When S woke up she said, “where’s my hot chocolate?” She looked outside the window and saw that it was daytime, and with panic in her eyes; she repeated, “Mommy, where’s my hot chocolate?” I explained that when I got home it was late and she and her sister were asleep, so I didn’t wake her. So I offered to make her morning hot chocolate instead. S was not having that, “No! Mommy, make it night again! Make it night again!” She wept in my arms. She didn’t understand that I couldn’t do that. I wonder if she thought that I was unwilling, not unable.

That was one of the first indicators that something was not quite right, emotionally speaking. She was only 3, and already showing signs of the anxiety which would keep her in a few short years from attending school. It marked the beginning of a long and painful journey, one that we are still navigating through. I hope that through this blog I can offer some words of support and encouragement to those who are just starting on this path. For many years, I believed that I was the only mom and we were the only family, who were having similar struggles with their children. I learned that I was wrong, but I wouldn’t learn that for a very long time.

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