Hold On For the Ride: Summer and developmental delays

I’ve been a very reluctant blogger lately, partly because I haven’t exactly known what to say and partly because I haven’t found the time to do any post justice.

It’s summer around here and that means slower days, sunshine, hours playing in the backyard, and a mama who actually has time and energy to be a real human being (not just a professor, communications director and exhausted parent). I’m still working about half time, but I don’t have to roll out of bed so early to get kids out the door. We’re all sleeping better and we’re nicer to each other in general. I’m drinking less coffee and more water. It’s good.

Yet the challenges in our house go on too. Matthew’s development is still slow, and I feel in many ways like we are living into the title of “special needs family.” It’s hard because I feel so sad for him and am still acutely aware of the profound losses he as an individual and we as a family are experiencing because of his many delays. In a frank conversation with our pediatrician this afternoon, she basically told me straight up that she’s pretty certain Matthew’s delays and challenges will be life-long for him. That’s not really a surprise to me, truthfully. On the outside I’ve been holding up this façade of believing that at some point he’s just going to snap into “normal kid mode” and life will move forward for us in the way we once expected it would. But in my heart (and my head) I’ve known for a while that our boy comes to us with a myriad of challenges that aren’t easily fixed or remedied.

It’s actually good to have a doctor finally speak these words aloud.

But then honestly there’s this other part of me that believes Matthew is developing in his own time. I’m not living in some delusional dream world where I think that one day he’ll just “snap out of it” and be speaking in full sentences. But each and every day he is working SO hard to learn and grown and change. I can just see the wheels in his head spinning each time I ask him to say a word or complete a task. His receptive language is growing in leaps and bounds. And he is definitely gaining skills and moving forward. Even our pediatrician complimented him on all his growth.

Which makes me ask the question, how much do I worry about him and how much do I just let him develop at his own pace?

Yes, we are now a special needs family. I’m the parent of a special needs child. These things are true about us, and they are things I wasn’t expecting. But I also know we have the skills, the passion, the resources and the support to parent Matthew and help him grow and thrive as much as he possibly can. When I'm especially discouraged, it helps me to remember these things.

So I’m committed to this task. But just so I don’t mislead my readers (some of whom may one day be special needs parents themselves), it’s also hard. I doubt. I grieve. I worry. I feel poignantly the many losses that both Matthew and our family have sustained because of his many challenges. And I'm tired a lot too.

There are hard moments in our days—especially when my mind starts to play tricks on me and tell me I can’t do this thing that’s in front of me.

But there are other times when I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the journey that is ours to walk. I LOVE Matthew so much—and I feel so attached to him. So even when it’s hard, I’m committed to helping him be the person that he’s created to be.

I also feel grateful for the faith that sustains Aaron and me through this journey—for a sense of “call” to this path of adoption and the way that the prayers and encouragement of others buoys us and keeps us walking forward during the rough patches.

Mostly I wish you all knew this boy the way I know him—his laughter, his learning, his kisses and snuggles (a relatively new thing), the joy he takes in discovering new things. My heart almost breaks with the weight of how much I love him.

What a complicated, beautiful, hard, amazing thing, this path of parenting Matthew. I had no idea how complicated it would be.

Nor how breathtakingly lovely.