Where Do We Go From Here?

Hi Ya'll!

It's been a minute! I hope life is treating you well and the season of life you find yourself in is met with kindness and assurance that "this too shall pass". That has been my life motto lately, or should be lol!

To give an update on where things are at right now in our life:

We bought a HOUSE! We are so thankful to be at this place in our life to give our children the stability we so deeply want to provide for their life. It was a long road to get here and we are very ready to finally move in.

I am FINALLY graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Social Work! I am also starting a Master's program this summer to further my education to be able to provide more for my family.

My husband started a NEW job! There is more of a commute involved, but it has been a very welcome change in our life and gives my husband many more opportunities for growth in his field of work!

We FINALLY got Charlotte a clinical evaluation in December, received the results in January and are at a place in our life where we feel comfortable with the information we were given that we can share what is going on. To explain, it is a very difficult experience to go through diagnostic testing of your child to figure out if something is "wrong" with them. It was until very recently that I decided to shift my mindset in regards to a diagnosis. It isn't that something is "wrong", it's that we want to be able to better understand our child, her struggles, and help her have a successful future with all of that.

Officially, she has "speech sound disorder" (F80.0, if you want to look it up in the DSM) and "other specified disruptive, impulse control, and conduct disorder" (F91.8). When the clinician I met with described it all to me and what it meant I truly did not hear a word she said. Instead, I avoided the truth, for what feels like a long time. Control, it's something I struggle with daily. This was another thing that I could not control in my sphere of life, this time involving my child. It wasn't so much the first diagnosis that did me in, but more so the second. I knew speech therapy and the benefits she would receive from it. But what I do not know, is what can be done to support her through the second diagnosis. It's crippling, being in that place mentally.

So many of you have been kind enough to check in with me, curious to know what her results were. Because of my own closed mindedness, I chose to look at it from a place of "I didn't get the results I wanted, so they didn't do their job", when in reality I understood very recently that their job function was fulfilled. It isn't the clinician's job to give my child a diagnosis I agree with. It IS their job to look at the full scope of the child to the best of their ability with the assistance of the family history and what not. Just because I don't like something, doesn't make it all the less true.

THAT is the pill that is the hardest to swallow.

Yesterday, I finally hit a breakthrough in understanding what this all means. My therapist who I work with on a weekly basis, sensing what I was struggling to do, pulled out her very own handy dandy DSM-V to go over the diagnosis herself, with me, explaining it word for word. Not only that, but we went over what it looks like from a future perspective of what is commonly seen in people with a "childhood onset" as it is called.

What I know now and cling dear to is that there was NOTHING I did to cause Charlotte to be the way she is from a genetic and prenatal standpoint. It was something I have ALWAYS struggled to cope with, the unknowns that somehow I did something to harm her to make her the way she is. My therapist and I even went over the studies that were done on this condition for her to prove to me that YES there are correlation's to a woman's stress and mental health status while pregnant, BUT that is NOT a causation of this disorder.

It was a weight that has been on me for longer than I care to admit. Once it hit me, I honestly sobbed. You know, the kind of cry a Mama does for her babies.

Just because things are hard does not mean I love my child any less. My love for her is an unconditional love, no matter what we go through. Even if I have struggled, God never left me abandoned. He's been there, waiting for me to come back to Him. He is there in all the dark times, happy times, and everything in between. I doubt a lot of things, and most of them are things I shouldn't. He is my strength when I feel weary. He is my constant when everything else feels out of my control.

Going forward, we are ACTIVELY searching out the best therapies, support and resources we can find for her to give her the best life possible.

Just because things are hard for her, and those around her who do not understand her, doesn't mean she deserves any less than any other child. She is MY child. God gave her to me. And if there is one thing I know I am good at, it is being an advocate for my children, no matter who I have to hound, seek out and pester, I am there to make sure my children have the best opportunities I can find for them. I will not fail them. I will be by their side, no matter how hard, no matter how exhausting, no matter how painful. God's got me, so I can have them.

"Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" - Matthew 11:28