A little insight
My baby! My world! The light of my life! Before autism my mama brain was so full of imagining what life would be like for Atticus. Who he would be and what all he would do. You see when they are just babies and you don’t know they are going to have autism you live in a perfect bubble of wonder and hope. I remember being excited about every milestone and every little smile or cute look I got. It’s intoxicating just being in awe of your baby. Atticus is nearing 7 now and we do not have an official diagnosis of autism but the older he has gotten the more clear it has come. We will start our diagnosis journey in September 2024 which I will be keeping y’all updated regularly on.
As the years began to come and go and Atticus grew from this tiny little baby to a full grown toddler in daycare and then going to school it became so obvious something was different about him. At the time I didn’t know many kids with autism so I didn’t really know what was happening. He started saying words around 2 but not many. He didn’t fully start talking until he was about 4. I felt incredibly defeated each time someone mentioned a kid his age and the things they were doing that Atticus hasn’t even begun to do yet. I felt like all that hope and wonder about what he would be when he grew up was just being pushed further and further from my mind. I started being consumed with therapy and celebrating the little wins of learning mile stones. I cried a lot… it’s scary how easily all my dreams were crushed by this idea of autism.
My heart wasn’t ready to accept that everything was going to be harder than it should be. By the time Atticus was 3 he was in therapy at daycare and starting early childhood development classes in elementary school. The doctors we were going to told me that some kids outgrow certain behaviors and that I should just keep doing what I’m doing and wait and see what happens. I had people I didn’t even know giving me advice about what I should do and how I should discipline and teach him things. My world was turned upside down… I’m not going to promise you that things have gotten better since my lowest of times as a mom going through this. But I can assure you there are just as many good days as there are hard ones.
On this blog I plan to share as much as I can about our experiences so that hopefully someone else can find some encouragement or support when they are feeling low. I will also be sharing ALOT of the good times! Because reading about someone’s ups and downs may help another mama in a similar situation.
From a mother’s perspective – Rachel