Strike 3

Hello good people.

My name is Mollie and I haven't had a blog post in four months.

My last post was written under the influence of Dilaudid, which I LOVE by the way, and I ended up spending 8 days in the hospital and the better part of a month recuperating from that medical mystery. They initially thought Crohn's, then they changed their minds, then they came back to Crohn's, then we did test upon test upon test and I swallowed a tiny Asian cameraman (long story) and 56, 000 pictures of the inside of my digestive tract later, they told me there was nothing wrong with me.

Obviously "they" have very little psychiatric training.

So, for the past few months I've suffered the ongoing, but much less severe, effects of "nothing wrong with me" disease, and I've learned a bit about what I can and cannot eat and can and cannot do. I've taken this whole thing as God trying to tell me I can't do it all. That or maybe I should change my diet. I'd prefer to think it's God speaking to me... That's much more reasonable than considering changing my diet. I might shrivel up and die without 5 cokes a day.

But enough about me.

The boys are doing well. They've both started school. Dax had already started transitioning into a classroom one day a week for a couple of hours at the end of last year's school year, and my TyTy, never to be outdone, tested into the school system at the end of the year. We had his IEP in July and, one very persuasive letter later, I have both the boys in the same classroom. They only go for half-days four days a week, but I am already seeing a difference in Ty's language... Which is great, because the little asshole (did I just type that out loud?) completed testing yesterday and, dum dum dum, he has autism.

What's that now?

Not Asperger's. Not PDD. Not SPD. Not ADHD. Not JLHD Syndrome (Just Like His Daddy Syndrome for you non-medical folks). Autism. Classic autism.

Holy crap on a cracker.

I won't say we were surprised. I won't say we didn't see the signs. I won't say the doctors are crazy and they got it wrong.

I will say he's precious and adorable and hilarious and quirky and loving and full of potential. And such a weirdo. He'll break out of the baby gate to go brush his teeth. He'll come up missing and be cleaning the shower. He'll sit in the driveway and pour rocks on his head for an hour. He'll pick his nose and bring it to me, wipe it on my arm, and say "Thank you." God bless America, he's the funniest creature I've ever met and he's going to make some lucky woman furious and very confused one day.

I don't struggle so much with the diagnosis for him. It was tough to hear, but I know my baby and I know his strengths and I don't worry so much yet. I know things will get more complicated as he gets older, but right now he's happy and he's bright and he's so eager to learn. He loves pleasing others, and, as a behavior analyst who's worked with tons of other people's children, I know the kids who want to learn, and who want to please you, are the ones who catch on the fastest. Ty will be fine.

Where I struggle is the guilt. Every mother has guilt. Special needs mamas doubly so, I think. I agonized for a long time over the twins and what I could have done differently and how I obviously suck as a mother if I can't even carry my babies long enough for them to thrive. I finally came to terms with that and let it go, or mostly so, and now, damn. I'm like, 0 for 3. It's a hard place to be because I really do think my kids are pretty perfect. They have never, ever disappointed me. Irritated me? Sure. Pushed me to the point of daydreaming about child abuse? Daily. But they've never let me down, and I am so damn proud of them...

But still I struggle. I should have been able to provide them the best genes, the best womb, the best prenatal care, the best whatever they needed up until birth, and then the best everything after. Where did I fail them? At what point did that thing happen that led to that little ripple that changed the course of their lives from easy breezy to damn, son, you're gonna have to work a whole lot harder than everyone else?

But then I return to being so extremely grateful that they are not average or normal or typical. They're extraordinary and amazing. People know my babies and love my babies and fight for my babies and pray for my babies and they make this world better and happier and bring love into it. So why do I feel guilty?

I just do :)

So thus begins the next chapter of whatever the hell kind of story this is. And as we do this we also add in the complications of doing it separated and selling a house and trying to figure out what on God's green earth is coming next.

Say what you will, it never, ever gets boring. Lord, sometimes I wish it would.