We're in Hiding

You don’t see us at the grocery store.

You don’t see us at the birthday party.

You don’t see us at events geared toward special needs children.

You don’t even see us at the autism walk.

We’re in hiding…

You’ve heard me talk about how our autism is a little different than what you might be used to seeing. The Asperger phenotype has completely dominated most people’s stereotypical view of autism. Media coverage focuses on the kid that gets to run for the touchdown, sings the national anthem, gets voted Homecoming King. You don’t see families like ours…well strike that, you do, but it’s generally in contexts that you don’t want to see…the children that are abused by caregivers, that wander and are found in a lake, families that have their neighbors leave nasty notes on their doorstep.

I’ll be perfectly honest (shocker right?). Part of the reason that you don’t see us is because we don’t want you to see us. We don’t want you staring, pointing, judging, or even desperately trying to ignore us. We don’t want you giving terrible explanations to your children when they ask “What’s wrong with him?” We don’t want you looking at us like we suck at parenting. We don’t want you to see us and pity us.

But the other (larger) reason you don’t see us is simple self-preservation. We protect our children at all costs. We try to avoid situations that make him miserable…for his sake, not ours, and not yours. But the balance is tough. When do we push him outside of his comfort zone, push ourselves as a family outside of our safe haven? He needs to have a chance to discover the world on his terms, and the people of this world are just going to have to suck it up and deal with it.

Every now and then, we’ll venture to a birthday party. It usually has to be a good friend and someone really familiar with (our) autism. The venue has to be just right (contained), and we have to have an easy exit strategy. It only happens every now and then.

We’ve tried the grocery store so many times. Inevitably, it ends badly, but I don’t even like to be in the Sunday afternoon mayhem (how do you not know where you are going?!?), so I sympathize.

Two weekends ago, we were lucky enough to go to a Special Needs Family Weekend at Camp Cullen. It was a HUGE step outside of our normal, but I’m so grateful we did. Was it perfect? NO! Did he lose his mind multiple times? YES. Would we do it again? Absolutely. Because the good outweighed the bad. Because we came out of hiding just for a little while. Because while we may have been the most “severe”, no one looked at us negatively, they simply saw a family trying…a family out of hiding. That weekend will get its own separate post, but it’s worth mentioning in this context. I’ll just say that I know there were many families who would have looked more like ours that didn’t even try to come because they were afraid. And that I understand. And that I second guessed myself 500 times. But that it was worth the risk, and I hope I can encourage other families like ours to give it a shot.

Fast forward a week to the autism walk here in Houston. A friend posted that she was with us in spirit but wasn’t there in person because she knew her child’s limitations. I was there, but I was wearing my scientist hat. I was lucky in that my entire work team was there, and we had a great morning of talking with families about our study. But we didn’t go as a family, we didn’t have a team, Kellen wasn’t there. I saw lots of autism families, lots of autistic children, but very few that looked like us. We don’t go to these kinds of events, our kids can’t take it right now. I’m grateful for those who can, but as I saw one family trying to work their way through a major meltdown with a kid around Kellen’s age, I was taken by the fact that even these specific autism events are NOT geared to the needs of OUR kind of autism. It was loud, it was crowded, it was spread out and confusing.

We made the right choice in not taking Kellen to the walk, and we made the right choice in “going to camp” as a family.  We choose our outings based on Kellen’s needs. I’m done worrying about what other people think. Yet, we need more opportunities that welcome the more severely impaired of our clan. They deserve more. Our families deserve more chances to try.

So just know that you may not see us, but we’re here. We’re surviving the best we can. And when we do make it out into the big scary world, please please be kind. A smile from a stranger while we’re trying to calm a screaming flailing child can be just the fuel we need to get through a tough moment. Be accepting, be kind, be open-minded, and if you have a question, just ask. Larkin is generally our family spokesperson, and she would love nothing more than to talk to you about her brother and autism in general ;)

Ask a Silly Question, Get A…Wait, Did You Just ANSWER?

Unanswered questions…this describes autism so perfectly both literally and figuratively. We still don’t know how autism truly manifests, why it happens, how to treat many of the devastating symptoms. We still don’t know the best strategies for effective communication, which leads to many parents asking their children questions and waiting for an answer that may never come.

I narrate our day. In the early days of motherhood, the “experts” all said that you should talk through what you are doing with your pudgy infants and curious toddlers and that you should do this using normal language rather than “baby talk”. So it became a habit, and those of you that have ever held a conversation with Larkin (if she let you get a word in) know that she’s basically been speaking like an adult since she was 3. This is of course in stark contrast to Kellen.

Dose of Reality #3857: Kellen is what you would call “limited verbal”. This means that he graduated from “non-verbal” (which is generally the extreme where no spoken words are used to communicate daily), however, we can no means have a conversation with him. His receptive language has increased (meaning we can see that he’s understanding what WE are saying), but his spontaneous language has been restricted to basic wants (“I want milk.”). And it is very, very, very difficult to get him to answer a question. He generally just echoes the question right back to you.

Regardless, I narrate our lives, and this includes constantly asking Kellen questions about what he thinks, what he’s doing, etc. and never expecting an actual answer. My expectations are going to need to change.

Kellen gets upset. Sometimes we can determine why pretty easily, other times we’re guessing blindly, and a lot of the time we don’t have a freaking clue. He’s historically gotten upset when one of us leaves the house (especially me), but it’s been pretty sad/amazing that now he’ll actually ask for the person. Looking for me, he’ll wander the house saying “Mama.” He’ll now notice that Patrick’s truck is gone and start saying “Daddy.” And considering that “Daddy” took an awfully long time to become part of his limited vocabulary, I know Patrick secretly loves this. It helps to know why he’s upset, even if there’s nothing we can do about it besides comfort him.

So Patrick gets home from the grocery store on Sunday. Kellen is at the front door saying “Daddy”, and then I send Larkin out to help him with the bags. As soon as she steps out, he whines, and I say “What’s wrong buddy?” to which he replies “Larkin!”

This was the first time he had ever asked for her. (Yes, I shed a tear, shut up).And then that afternoon turned into a series of ridiculous moments that no one could have predicted.

* Kellen with a concerned look on his face was looking under and around everything downstairs. *

Me: What’d you lose buddy?
Kellen: Perry

Holy crap, he had misplaced Perry the Platypus and actually TOLD us what he was looking for.

* Kellen has been carrying around a very carefully constructed Lego creation for a few days now. I made a point of taking it and trying to see if just maybe it was “something” to him. *

Me: What is it?
Kellen: Rescuebot

What the? And then we look at it and “see” the head, arms, legs that do in fact resemble a Transformer, and certainly the primary colors of the Legos lend themselves to the Rescue Bots. And you see this is another one of those things that “autism isn’t supposed to do”. They’re supposed to view the blocks as just that, blocks. They’re not supposed to create something imaginary and then proceed to play with it as that imaginary thing; they’re supposed to play with the objects as they are or in a restrictive and repetitive way. Yet, we see more and more of our kids showing us how wrong many of these assumptions are.

* Kellen pulling my arm because he wants me to go somewhere. I’ve started not going with him until he verbally communicates something, which at best is “Downstairs” or “Outside”. *

Me: What do you need?
Kellen: Potty

Mind you this is a glass half full moment. He had pooped in his underwear (still working on that one, suggestions welcome LOL!), but he had come to get me, had told me where we needed to go, and then of course I HAD to go.

* Kellen again pulling my arm a while later. *

Me: What do you want?
Kellen: (you can see in his face that he is thinking really hard about what word he could possibly use) Come on!

Are you kidding me? So after much laughter, of course I went!

* And then I’m sitting with him and watching him carefully select a few blocks and arrange them just so. This is what he ended up with. *
So I took another shot.

Me: What is it?
Kellen: Little Einsteins (and then proceeds to fly it around like Rocket).

I’ve asked questions of him for years but had resigned myself to the fact that I was talking to myself. Not anymore. I’m once again humbled to remember that we are on HIS timeline, not the timeline dictated by any study, any doctor, and certainly not by me. Thanks buddy for again making me throw the status quo out the window.

Why I don't post as much as I should...and why that's about to change

I know that I should post more.

I compose at least a post a day in my head...but life gets in the way.

I said something recently on Facebook, and I was struck by a few friends' appreciation of my honesty. It's something I do well, and I'm basically honest to a fault. For moms like me, for families like ours, for kids like Kellen, I need to do a better job of transparency. 

So here it is...my promise to post at least once a week.

Why is this important?

Some of our voices are getting crowded out. I used to closely follow another autism mom blogger who had various adventures somewhat similar to our own, but then our paths diverged. She began to focus far more on what adults with autism needed rather than what mom/child pairs (like us) needed. By all means, her points and priorities are valid and needed...but it's not what WE need. When that mom is so focused on (and let's be honest "parading") asking her autistic daughters permission to post pictures/stories online, well, let's just say that their autism is NOT our autism...at least not right now. While I absolutely respect her/their approach, we are in an entirely different game. Do NOT attempt to speak for us, and we will happily show you the same courtesy.

Anyway, the point is...I had one, you see... Get ready. A whole lotta truth is headed your way. 

I'm strong enough to write it. Are you strong enough to read it? And are you brave enough to stand up for what we believe in?

These Things Happen to All of Us (AKA The time I got trapped in the backseat)

I hear this quite a bit. When I share a challenging story on my blog, on Facebook, or in person, parents of neurotypical children always console me by saying “That’s normal, those kind of things happen to us all the time, too.” I’m about to share “one of those” stories, but I wanted to take a minute to talk about that comment.

First, I know that it is absolutely meant to make me feel better. I appreciate it. I really do. You want me to know that “normal kids” line stuff up, write on the walls, pee all over the floor, climb the pantry, lose their minds in the grocery store checkout, and create general destruction around the house. I get it, I hear you, and again, I appreciate your compassion and camaraderie so very much.

But, I’m going to tell you something that you maybe don’t realize. You’re not only saying it to make me feel better…you’re saying it to make yourself feel better. Because you are a good person and a good friend, you want to convince yourself that what we’re facing isn’t really as tough as it is. It’s self-preservation in your subconscious, and if I were in your shoes, I’d be saying the same things.

Lots of the crazy things that happen in our family have happened to other families, but when you throw autism in the mix, you add another layer of complexity that it indescribable. We can’t communicate, we can’t just change the routine on the fly, we can’t recover as quickly...him or me. But we get better at it every day…I think…I hope.

So let me set the stage. Patrick just started a new job. We are SO happy and so proud of him. He started Monday…flew out Tuesday…oh crap. No problem though right, I can do this with my eyes closed…turns out it probably would have been great if I’d just kept my eyes closed through the entire morning.

I have a plan. I’m working from home because we have a huge progress report for our grant due next week, so bonus, I don’t have to get dressed! Throw on some running clothes, get everyone dressed, backpacks packed, dogs fed, we are completely killing it! So then there’s the timing issue this morning. Normally, when I’m flying solo, I drop off Larkin at school first, which is a dropoff line where they just open the car door and out she goes. But it’s freaking summer…and she had a field trip today and HAD to be there before Kellen’s clinic opened. No problem…I can do this.

Off we go to drop off Larkin, sign her in, walk Kellen back to the car, and then…yep…thermonuclear meltdown. Lays down in the middle of the parking lot between the cars, parents going every which direction, and a super busy road yards away. We struggle for a while, but I’m a safety-at-all-costs kind of person, so I know I need to get him contained in the car. I managed to pour him into the backseat somehow, but he’s still trying to escape. I then get in after him and shut the door so we’re both in the backseat. He them proceeds to wedge himself into the floorboard in such a way that I can’t even begin to pick him up and get him in a carseat. Not to mention, I’m now basically sitting in HIS carseat (you know because we got in on that side), so I’m going to have to get him into Larkin’s carseat. I’m pretty sure 15 or so minutes go by, along with at least 2 different cars per side parked next to us, so yes, if you’re keeping count at home, that was at least 4 moms/dads staring at the crazy lady in the backseat of her car with her clearly poor behaved son. I did not give anyone the finger…I’m putting that in the win column.

I finally physically get him to sit in Larkin’s carseat, but then he starts the inevitable backbend to keep from being buckled. Yes, this is exactly where everyone says, “my kid does that all the time, it’s terrible”. I challenge you to try to do this with a SIX year old who is at the 90^th percentile in growth for his age and is ridiculously strong and fit. However, in a battle of wills, I still win (for now), so I got him buckled. He’s crying, I’m about to start bawling, and then I realize the ridiculousness of my situation.

I’m in the back seat of the car…with the doors closed…and the child locks on…I can’t get the eff out. I closed my eyes for a second, mustered as much dignity as I could, and crawled over the console of my car into the driver’s seat…at this point, I had even more people staring. I smiled this time, put on my sunglasses, and took a really deep breath. I can only imagine the various retellings of my morning “Oh my God, at daycare this morning, this mom was totally crazy sucky at parenting, she couldn’t even get her kid in the car seat.”

I got myself together and drove off. Kellen cried a good bit of the way to his clinic while I tried to tell him soothing and calming things. As soon as I drove away from dropping him off, I fell into the ugly cry. I get home…Larkin forgot to close the upstairs gate…so Raven (the newest Great Dane) had gotten hold of Kellen’s overnight diaper and torn the thing up all over my bedroom floor…

I’m fine now. I wanted to crawl back under the covers and just sulk, but there’s just too much to do. Half an hour and a caramel macchiato later, I was returning to normal. Mom texted me to see how the morning went and clearly I couldn’t possibly recount the events via text. As I began to retell it, I found myself laughing at the ridiculousness that was my morning. I was okay. I was recovering. And by the time I picked up Kellen, he was of course totally fine and actually ended up having a great evening.   

Forget the fact that the internet went out in the afternoon (spent the afternoon at Starbucks working), that one dog went crazy for some unknown reason and the other dog chewed up something and we STILL have no idea what it was in its former life.

This is our life. This is our life with autism. It’s not easy, it’s not normal (well it’s normal for us but obviously not for most of you guys), but it is worth it. At the end of the day, we all got what we needed: Larkin had her field trip to the Dynamo Stadium (she said the locker room smelled like stinky armpits), Kellen made it to therapy, I managed to get out all of the necessary emails and come up with a pretty good first draft of the progress report, Patrick seems to have had a super productive day in Chicago, and we’re all still (mostly) sane.

We live to play another day (say it with a Cajun garbled accent, you get bonus points if you know the movie). On the bright side, our lives will never ever be boring...also Patrick comes home tomorrow so that helps.

Because Just in Case...to Kellen

If you’re reading this, you know how overprotective I am. If you’re reading this, you know I can get a little crazy when I’m separated from you, or your sister, or your father. Whether you’re reading this or not, I know that you KNOW how much I love you.

I’m getting on a plane on Sunday. Don’t tell your sister, but I HATE flying (I know that’s a bad word, just humor me). I hate being in the air, I hate not having control. The one thing I hate most of all is that right now, as we are, I am terrified that you won’t understand what happened if the unimaginable happens…I am bawling my eyes out this second thinking about it.

We spend every day trying EVERYTHING we can to get you where you need to be. Diets, doctors, therapies, all of it ISN’T to make you NORMAL (as some so-called autism advocates would say, and son, I’ll tell you now they are full of poop – see I’m using better language here). All of it is so that we can talk to each other. There is no one in this world that understands you better than I do. Everything I do is so that we can know each other better, so I can help you be what you WANT to be, so that you can tell me/show me what you need/want/hate (bad word again). You’re doing a damn good job (oh just go with the bad language).

I am proud of you EVERY day. You surprise me ALL the time. You, your sister, your father, you are my reason for being. It is all worth it every single day. The good, the bad, the hard, the easy, the crazy, the sane, the…us.

Currently, you’re focused on setting up these elaborate scenes with no less than 30 parts in any given area of the house…so much so that I’ve started sweeping around them. Your favorite things right now…books…it’s awesome. You’ve also discovered stickers…which is also awesome except when you stick them to the couch… You love Baymax, Transformers, and there is nothing I love more than to hear you say Optimus Prime. You’ve also started crying at the appropriate parts of movies (lately, the Transformers movies), and while I don’t like to see you sad, it is truly wonderful.

You’ve started asking for me when I’m not here (which tears my heart out right now as I get ready to leave in 36 hours). Your sister loves to fly (clearly that is your father’s genes). Her birthday is while I HAD to be gone for this conference, so in a crazy chain of events, she ended up coming with me. I know that you’ll be in excellent hands with Papa and Nina. I know that we’ll learn a lot by traveling with Larkin (many days son, you are a much easier child than your sister, but don’t tell her I said that). I also know that you would not survive an overseas trip, or even a 3hr flight right now. But know that we are determined to get there. You will be our guide. I won’t force you on a plane because WE want to go somewhere. We will wait until you are ready…and then we will go. Wherever your heart desires. I’ll be honest, once you’re ready, I actually think you’re going to love flying…you and your sister both have your father’s fearlessness when it comes to that kind of thing. I’m seriously going to have to fake it with Larkin on Sunday!

So I’ll leave you with this…you are on the verge of something. I see it. I feel it. I’m still trying to figure it out. You are always the leader on our journey. I said recently that my research will be my love letter to you…I mean that with all my heart. It’s with that thought that I have to head out to this conference. I’ll buy you way too much stuff, I’ll annoy you by calling on Facetime too many times, I will completely micro-manage your food, schedule, clothes, etc. while I’m gone (there’s a really long list for Papa).

But it’s because I love you. It’s all because I love you. Never ever forget that son.

Bangs

I know what you’re expecting…this supercute post on me cutting bangs and loving them/hating them/discovering cute up do’s…. What? No, that’s not what you’re expecting? Then you know me too well ;)

I got bangs. They look pretty cute thanks to my super awesome hairstylist.  I wanted something different and for it to look like I ACTUALLY got my hair done…mission accomplished. Truth be told, once they settled in after a couple of days, I do genuinely like them and I’m going to completely love them as they grow out and I get to play. Patrick even seems to like them (maybe because I said they were temporary). But before I came to that realization, something bad happened…I looked in the mirror.

For a good 24-48 hours after I got them cut, I completely froze every time I got a glimpse of myself. It was a bit unnerving honestly. It didn’t make sense…I actually look darn cute in bangs J And it took me awhile but then it finally hit me. I joke (although I am completely aware that it’s not a joking matter…I joke because I’m not entirely joking…) that I have PTSD about random things related to the rough years, including ultrasounds (when you have so many go bad…). So in a huge surprise to me, I have PTSD about bangs. Laugh now. Please, really, laugh, because I did after I got done crying. It’s completely ridiculous, completely inconceivable (ha…look at me being funny), and completely true.

I took a shower this weekend, and stepped out with bangs going every which direction…and was immediately and painfully thrown 10 years in the past. You see, 10 years ago next month, I found out I was pregnant for the first time. A week later, we went to my parents’ to tell them in person (you know, because tell everyone you know at 5 weeks, what could go wrong…). While there, I got my hair cut, and decided, of course, to get some bangs. They were very poorly behaved bangs to be honest LOL. I think it was about 72 hours later that everything started to fall apart. Pain, a general bad feeling in my bones, medical confirmation, an overnight hospital stay, and surgery…then I wasn’t pregnant anymore (the ectopic…).

This led to me…a few days later…stepping out of the shower…looking in the mirror…and finding myself completely and utterly unrecognizable.

I looked rounder than usual….thanks to 3 months of fertility drugs and gas that had inflated me during the laparoscopic surgery a couple of days before.

There were scars…3 of them…I could see them all in this lopsided triangle, sutures still visible.

There were those stupid bangs.

I looked nothing like myself. Everything about me was wrong. Everything about me had changed. Nothing would ever be the same…and it wasn’t.

I remember that moment so vividly. I’m fairly certain it was the first shower I had taken without supervision, the first day I’d been home left alone.

So here I was this weekend, stepping out of the shower and that image slapped me in the face. Maybe it was that I’m a little rounder than usual…I had more than a little stress this fall between major changes for Kellen, Patrick’s travel, and my grant proposal; my marathon training was anything but perfect; and my eating habits…embarrassing. But then there were those damn bangs.

And then I laughed. I laughed because for whatever ridiculous reason, Larkin is in LOVE with my bangs. She talks about my hair constantly, especially when I’m not around, so she just really loves it that much. And I kept laughing because the “old bangs” had lost so much…but the “new bangs” have a little mini-me super-fan that’s totally into the bangs. And then I cried…not because of the “old bangs” but because I thought of the day that I got my hair cut and went to pick up Kellen, having a momentary worry that he’d of all times notice my hair and react negatively, and instead…he did notice…and he kissed me…first on both cheeks (where I joked that apparently we were British that day)…and then purposefully put his hands on both side of my face, looked me in the eyes, and kissed me on the lips…twice. He doesn’t kiss on the lips. When you ask him for a kiss, he gives you his forehead…and if you kiss him on the cheek, he wipes right after. He didn’t wipe. He kissed me.

And so then I laughed and cried at the same time because the “old bangs” had sorrow and failing hope…but the “new bangs” had joy and laughter and…us. Time passes, things change, hair grows. No matter where you find yourself stepping out of the shower today, it can and will get better. Hope is powerful, and maybe I just needed that reminder.

Also, maybe I should remember that “grown out bangs” are a little more my style…Larkin may be disappointed J

Because She Doesn’t Know Me…and Sometimes I Don’t Either

***I started writing this in April 2014 and never finished it! I'm recommitted to blogging in 2015!!***

It’s an amazing thing to see yourself through your child’s eyes. It can sometimes be less than pleasant, (Do I really sound like that?), it can be quite comical (when your toddler constantly praises you for doing a good job at everyday tasks, like opening the milk.), and it provides an endless supply of “teachable moments” that you have to balance between your own wants, what’s best for your child, and how it all fits into the world we live in.

Larkin had a fun run at her school. It was basically a 1K race (I know, hilarious distance right?) complete with fancy tutus. We were dressed up and having a great time. I thought the parents were going to run with the kids, but then we were told that we could follow along, but they were on their own. I ran at a distance, encouraging her the whole way, and she did amazing. Ran the whole way, never walked, and came in around 7^th place, the 2^nd girl, and again, all the kids in front of her had walked at least once. I thought she did awesome. But they only gave medals to the first 3 places, and I could see that she was disappointed. Come to find out, the parents were actually going to run separately at the end of the kids’ races. I was not prepared to run that morning, I was just going to jog around with her. But when we went to line up, I heard my own words pep-talking me from the mouth of my newly-6-year old. “OK, Mama, remember, no walking, just try your hardest and run your fastest. I know you can do it.”

Oh crap, so now I have to run because she’s watching me with all of her friends, she’s expecting me to be fast, and I want to make her proud. Super role reversal there. Let me just say that 1K is a rough distance, it was basically a cross-country sprint around the school. I fell in behind two dads, and then managed to pass one of them on the home stretch, winning 2^nd place. She was so excited. But then when I got my medal, I saw a little bit of sadness creep into that smile.

We walked home, and I tried to get her talking. She really was disappointed that she didn’t win. I quickly showed her the picture of her coming to the finish line, and what I pointed out to her were the people BEHIND her not the people in front of her and again told her how proud I was. But my random medal was making her feel like she’d let me down…and that’s when I realized it.

She doesn’t know me. I mean of course she knows me, but she doesn’t know 6-year old me. She knows a mama that balances all sorts of things every single day, that spends her work day as a scientist, her evenings and weekends doing the best she can as a mom, being that mom that makes matching tutus, and bows, and homemade cookies, and finds a way to get to the school parties, and pack lunches with a little love note or surprise. She knows the mom that runs marathons, that does push-ups in the living room, that is “athletic”.

So then I sat her down and told her who I was. That at her age, if I had run that race, I would have been dead last. That at her age, I wouldn’t even have had the courage and confidence to even start the race. That at her age I was picked LAST every single time in PE (but first in the math flashcard relays…LOL). That I never played soccer like her, never danced like her, never ran a race like her.

She was completely and utterly shocked. We both learned a lot that day, and by sharing who I was, I saw that confidence bloom in her even more. But at the same time, it was an unexpected opportunity for self-reflection.

I’m not the person I thought I was going to be. For so many reasons.

I was going to have 2-3 kids. I was going to have a nanny, and the kids would only go to private school. I was going to have a ridiculously huge house and a very expensive car. We were going to go on lavish vacations every summer. The kids would wear only Ralph Lauren. My career would come first, and the kids would have to fit into our schedule, to our lifestyle. They would be in the best camps, the best sports clubs, and have private lessons. I would expect them to be the best, I would put them on a pedestal and accept nothing short of perfection. I would have felt entitled, I would have felt superior, I would have felt empty…

That same month, it became even more clear that I was not the person I was going to be. Larkin had her first science fair. Long story short, she got second place (she was robbed though, first place went to a group project, and they had their results and conclusions swapped…geesh! Lol). When I saw the red ribbon instead of the blue, I heard my grandmother in my head. I heard the tone of disappointment, I felt failure, and then I looked at Larkin and saw joy “Oh my gosh Mama, a red ribbon! I got 2^nd place!”. Every kid had gotten a green participation ribbon, unless you were 1^st-3^rd. She saw red and saw success. It slapped me in the face in the best way.

I am not the person I was going to be. The changes started the day that I walked in a door and met eyes with Patrick for the first time. You would think that the changes were further solidified when we had kids…but it was the opposite. I was changed forever when we DIDN’T have kids.

When month after month, year after year, we still didn’t have children. When loss after loss happened. Those years shaped me in a way that I can’t explain. Because of those losses, because of those trials, because of the fight to get to them, I am a very different mother. Believe it or not, I am thankful for those years. They’ve made me more patient, more grateful, more loving. They’ve made me see my children with wonder and excitement, eager to see what they’ll do in this world…rather than simply expecting them to follow the path I set out for them. I’m along for the ride to help guide…but it’s their road.   

I am not the person I was going to be, and thank God for that.