birth to three | Parenthood Doesn’t Come with GPS

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.

http://birth23

My first child, a boy, was born at a very healthy 10lbs 10oz. He was HUGE! He was the buzz of the hospital nursery. The nurses would laugh and say, “Oh, you’re the mom of the BIG baby!? We had to get diapers from the pediatric floor, because he doesn’t fit in the newborn ones!” So despite the fact that he came home wearing size 3-month clothing, he had a normal babyhood. Until at around 18 months, while playing with some playmates I realized that my son wasn’t saying words like the other boys. They said “mommy, more goose (juice)” and many other simple phrases and words. My son? Nope…sounds, grunts, pointing and showing me what he was talking about. It worked for me! My son did get very frustrated and banged his head sometimes but I still hadn’t quite realized this was a problem Fortunately for me, one of the moms decided to speak to me about her concerns. She suggested that I have him evaluated by Connecticut’s Birth to Three System. Birth to Three’s “mission is to strengthen the capacity of families to meet the developmental and health-related needs of their infants and toddlers.” I was told that they had specialists who would come into my home to evaluate my son for possible speech delay issues. Was I grateful for this kind and caring advice? NO! I was not! Like many new mothers, I was insulted and hurt because I took it personally. I was too insecure to take well meaning advice. It seemed to confirm my own worst fears; I’m a bad mom! I have no idea what I’m doing! I told myself lots of BS. He’s only 2 1/2! He’ll wake up tomorrow morning and say “Good Morning Mother!” in a clipped British accent! Or recite the Gettysburg Address at the dinner table!

Of course, I was in the river in Egypt: Denial!

After I had a week or two to calm down and think about it, I realized that she was absolutely right. No one but me (and sometimes his Dad) could understand him. He got frustrated when I didn’t understand and he couldn’t tell me what he needed or wanted! Poor guy! One morning I was in my room and I heard a quiet thunk,thunk,thunk coming up from the stairs. What was it? It was my son hauling up a gallon of milk step-by-step to show me he wanted a cup of milk. Did I mention how strong he was?

So a short time later, I got over myself and called Birth to Three. They listened to my concerns about my son and his lack of words and sounds. Two lovely therapists came out to my house a week later and spent qitesome time evaluating him. They asked about family history, my pregnancy, labor and delivery and so forth. They were kind and gentle and professional. After reviewing their findings, they determined that he did have Expressive Speech Delay–which is different (and easier to treat) than Receptive Speech Delay (which involves the brain receptors which interpret the spoken word and sounds) . My son had no problem with that, he was able to follow 2 step commands like “take your shoes off and put them by the door.”

Expressive delay is usually due to a deficit/weakening of the fine-motor muscles. So while my son could understand instructions, he couldn’t repeat them. I hadn’t realized that the tongue is a large muscle which is in charge in the formation of sounds; words and sounds. Birth to Three would provide services to our family, and our son was to attend pre-school at the STAR Rubino Center in Norwalk. Their primary focus was to work with children with speech-delay; speech impediments; mutism. I turns out that instead of being a bad mom, I was being too good a mother. I was the interpreter for my son. I understood his “words” and his approximations of language;

The Rubino Center was an answer to prayers. He spent 2 hours, twice a week in the classroom, and he saw an individual speech therapist as well. The goal was to strengthen his tongue and lips. Unlike other kids, he had a fun homework assignment; he had to drink a McDonalds milkshake every couple of days. While it’s not necessarily a healthy choice, but that think liquid going up the straw sure gave his mouth a workout! And a good incentive too!

I think his first word that I understood was “puddle” which he told me after class following a rainstorm. It was my favorite word for a long time.

A few years later, I ran into the mom who had suggested that I have my son evaluated; I apologized for my initial response to her and thanked her warmly for her help in pushing me in the right direction to get him the speech therapy he needed. I described the progress he had made thus far and that I would have waiting much longer had she not intervened. It also helped me realize that the biggest impediment to getting him help was ME! My own ego and my own insecurities, which should have been put aside.