Acceptance

 I have talked about how we have come to the conclusion that Josiah has autism and where he is at now with therapy and swimming, but I have never touched on the journey to acceptance much. I really do think I need to share that it wasn't just like waking up and thinking okay, he may have autism and well that is fine with me because that is the way God made him. It was a process that took time. 

When Josiah was younger something always seemed off with how he interacted with me and other people. I had put this off as being possibly because he was breastfed and I did not know many people who breastfed. I also put off his insane need to be swaddled all the time and tightly for the same reason. As he got older I wondered if he did have a delay of some sort. I had even made comments like "he seems socially off, somehow". I just could not put my finger on it. Even though I had know about autism, I mainly knew about the typical autism. The low functioning or middle ground functioning, but did not know anything about the higher function type or that there could be autism without repetitive movements.

I did dawn on me eventually that he may have autism. I started asking ?'s to some people that knew their kids had autism and got mixed answers on my child's behavior being normal or not. I went back and forth with the he has it, to no way he has it, and back to maybe he does. We got a hold of an early on program and although they felt he was showing some signs of autism they said they do not like to label a child so early and that we would have to wait until preschool. Luckily before then Jason and I had come to the conclusion that he probably had autism and that we were not going to take a wait and see kind of approach, since that is never the best approach to take with young children and brain development.

Through the place not diagnosing him and knowing how far behind he really was, I went through some tough times. At 17 months he had the evaluation and he was: 13-15.5m for thinking learning and play; 5-5.7m for speech and language; 10-11.5m for relating to parents, self and others; 5-5.7m for emotions and feelings; 13-15.5m for self help and coping skills; 8.5-10m for fine motor; and 11.5-13m for gross motor. Almost everything he was more than half of his age. I started wondering where I went wrong, what did I do wrong, why me, why my child. I was going to school for Early Childhood Education and could teach other kids skills, but not my own. My child was behind and by a lot. He might have autism. Why me? I did everything that you were supposed to and nothing you were not supposed to during pregnancy and I have know people to drink and smoke and all kinds of things and their children turned out perfect to be perfect health. We had already dealt with so many health issues his first year of like I was kind of just hoping that instead of him having the delays because of autism that he was behind because of all the health issues and being born early. I honestly did not trust my ability to take care of a child with special needs. I had done all sorts of thing with children, but I was not confident in the area of Special needs. I talked to a wise friend of mine about how I was feeling a why me moment and I did not really want to be there, but just needed some venting and she shared with me a really good video that helped me a lot.

See because on top of feeling the why me and denying he had autism I also was feeling loss. Loss of my child and loss of his future. I wondered if he would graduate high school in a normal class or special ed like my father. I worried he would not go to college, get married, or be able to live on his own. I wondered if he would ever talk and why I could not just have all the regular mommy experiences. I already knew I missed out on a lot of eye gazing lovelyness when he was a baby, but I still wanted to have what every other mom gets to have. The ability to have their child grow up and make a choice on their own and not to have it taken away from them prematurely. I wanted him to choose if he stayed in high school and graduated with the hopes that he would since my parents were the first in my family to even graduate and now only a few cousins have followed suit as well. I had hopes he would choose to go to college, but would support him in any way I could if for some reason it was just not the correct fit for him. I had hopes that he would fall in love, get married, move out, have children of his own, so I too someday can be called grandma. You plan and think of all of these things normally before a child is even born. Not to mention the in between moments where you hope they will have the choice to play a sport if they wish. I know my family never had the money to allow me to do any extra activities after school. My wise friend also shared a book with me D iz for Different. By the time I had read the book I had already gone through the stages of acceptance several times over and gone back again. 

After reading the book I made the decision I was going to stay at acceptance as long as and as much as I could. I was also going to live in the here and now. Not in the past on what I might have done wrong or what I missed out on or on the future which is never guaranteed anyways. By focusing on the now and not worrying about the future or past it did several things. First, I was honoring God more: I was trusting our future to him and I had also actually accepted that even if my son was not going to be higher functioning in society that he would still be a part of God's family and in a way I dedicated his life to him. I was also able to honor him by trusting him more, it was not what I did or what I learned that has helped us get to where we are now or where we will be in the future. He is our guide.  Second, I was able to focus more on what my son is doing now, what is going on now, and the little accomplishments most parents do not give much attention to, I was able to notice and love them all. Focusing on the now has made me a better mother. 

I have always know that autism was not the end of the world; however embracing the new world was a hard and scary experience that has taken a lot of faith/trust, but embracing it has been so wonderful. I have embraced it so much now that if there was a magic pill to take away his autism, I just would not do it. To me so much of him that makes him, who he is today and which made me, who I am today is mainly thanks to his autism. Yup, I said thanks to, it has opened my eyes and changed me; It has made me a better, more patient, and more understanding person (because of course patients comes from understanding in most cases). I know that through whatever it is that Josiah will go through in life it will help to make him who he will be, both the good and bad. Also, that with me accepting him fully, autism and all and not wishing there was a magic pill, he too will be be more able to accept himself fully for who he is. I will do what I can to help him learn and to help him cope with things and to learn how to deal with the world around him, but I am not trying to change him.