April is Autism Awareness month, and I have a vested interest in researching this disorder. Meet my first son Benjamin.
No parent ever wants to hear that something is wrong with their child; that their offspring is not completely perfect.
Realizing the magnitude of being entrusted to care for, nurture, raise and eventually let go of a new life is both mind-boggling and awe-inspiring as well as terrifying. Before my first was born, I could barely be considered responsible to care for an aquarium, and rightly so: I am an idiot.
Having had no experience with babies, I had no idea that mine was abnormal. He hated human touch, he preferred to watch his mobile spin around to looking at faces. His first word was not ‘œMama’ or ‘œDada’ or even ‘œBaba:’ it was ‘œtock-tock.’ His phrase for ‘œtick-tock’ referring to the grandfather clock in the hallway which he adored. I’d be lying if I claimed that I wasn’t devastated by his total lack of interest in me and his distain for my touch, but I assumed that this was just the way he was.
Different strokes for different folks and all that happy horseshit.
Shortly after his first birthday, he was introduced to the planets through a Baby Einstein video. Before he could recognize emotions, he knew 4 of the moons of Jupiter and could identify them from different angles. *I* couldn’t even do that.
Rather than wanting to read Goodnight Moon, I took him to Borders and he picked out an encyclopedia of the solar system intended for adults, which he memorized cover to cover. He could spend hours at the Planetarium but screamed bloody murder at the zoo. I’d come home from class to several different ‘œsolar systems’ he’d created out of balls, each true to form. His depth of knowledge was amazing and freakish and I have no real way to illustrate that to you here.
This was all before his second birthday.
I had realized, of course, that he wasn’t speaking as much as What To Expect During The First Year said that he should, but considering the authors militant stand about their stupid pregnancy diet in their stupid pregnancy book, I wasn’t too worried. I just assumed that he was developing at a different rate than others his age. I mean, what 17-month old can tell you what Pluto’s moon is? (mine could). I had also figured that no one had really encouraged his speaking abilities, being the only child/grandchild, we all spoke for him.
At his 2 year check-up, his regular pediatrician was out and his partner told me in no uncertain terms that not only could he not understand him, but that he would be writing a referral out for an evaluation from Early Interventions. I left that appointment not only upset with the manner in which the doctor had spoken to me (‘How dare he talk to me like that?’) but by the fact that I hadn’t even thought anything was wrong.
Several times, different evaluators came out to our house to observe him and speak with me about his behaviors. Many of the questions provoked light bulbs in my head, a ‘œso THAT’S why he does _____! (only eats 3 things, becomes so overwhelmed by touch that he screams inconsolably, lines up his toys by color on the stairs, has an insane fascination with spinning things, knows WAAAAAYYY too much about the solar system, flaps his arms whenever he’s excited”) which really only made me feel worse about the things I had never noticed, or had noticed but considered quirks.
I drew the line at receiving a formal medical diagnosis however, because as a nurse and the daughter of a mentally ill mother, I am completely aware how these things follow you for the rest of your life until you can only define yourself by them. Does that make sense to you?
Let me give you an example: I (myself here) am dyslexic, have Crohn’s disease, and have a latex/iodine/shellfish allergy. But does that make me who I am? Not one bit, but not only do I catch myself excusing away things based on this, it has become a teeny tiny but integral part of my self image. And I do not have any behavioral problems to excuse away (i.e. ‘œI’ll never be able to sit still because I have ADD, therefore I won’t even try.’)
Without a totally formal diagnosis, he was explained to be on the autistic spectrum and speech and occupational therapies began immediately. For almost two years, he recieved both therapies and began to make strides toward more normal behavior. He began to speak more frequently and clearly in addition to being able to deal with more and more textures, consistencies, and tastes. His more interesting quirks remain to this day, thankfully, as they are part of what makes him who he is.
My soon-to-be husband and I enrolled him into private school when he turned three to enrich his social skills, as he had no children his own age to play with at home. I’m not sure that these social skills will ever be what is considered totally normal, but they have improved by leaps and bounds, possibly to the point that an innocent bystander would not realize how much he had once struggled to do something as simple as recognize basic emotions.
I have still struggled through numerous thoughtless comments from both parents and non-parents alike (‘why won’t he eat anything but junk food?’) who have somehow gotten it in their head that his problems are little more than an issue of bad parenting. I have suffered through years of guilt and regret (had *I* done something to cause this?) I have spent cold meal after cold meal coaxing him to eat something that looks different or *is* different.
I continue to worry about what his life will be like as he grows older and begins to interact more with the general population: will they be gentle and understanding of his uniqueness or will they tease and mock him mercilessly?
Have we done enough to prepare him for the world?
I have spent hours upon hours reassuring him that completing a ritual out of order was just fine, and comforting him from afar while wanting nothing more than to sweep him in my arms and kiss his tears away.
I have had to accept that my child is not perfect in any text book sense.
Is this the worst thing that could happen to a mother? Certainly not; he’s happy, he’s healthy, and above all else he is loved unconditionally. Having seen babies born without brains and hearing them cry (possibly the worst sound in the world), I am aware that I got off pretty easy here. But competing in the Pain Olympics isn’t why I wrote this post.
As you all know, I am not one to use this blog as a political forum, nor am I likely to spend time talking about my feelings here, or elsewhere. But this is an issue incredibly close to my heart: he’s part of my heart, he’s my son.
We all have hopes for our children.
As for me, I just hope that he knows how much I have loved him.
When I got pregnant with Ben, I used it as an excuse to indulge in all of my favorite crappy foods. Cheese sticks, pizza, Steak -n- Shake, ice cream, McDonald’s, you name it, I ate it. And loved it.
In my defense, I was 20 and able to eat pretty much whatever I wanted anyway, so it wasn’t a stretch for me. What was a big surprise (to me anyway) was that I then gained about 70 odd pounds. I don’t really know the precise number because I eventually stopped looking at the scale go up when I’d go in for my weekly weigh-in’s torture sessions.
10 pounds of that was water weight (I was swollen like my pre-eclampsia sisters) because it was damn hot that summer, and 8 lbs was baby, but the rest? Fat. All fat.
For the first couple of months, I tried desperately to lose the weight: I joined a gym, ate better, you name it, I tried it. And the scale moved upwards again by about a pound. This was enough to throw me over the edge and I gave up. Eventually, my metabolism kicked in and I lost most of the pounds, and dieted away the rest of them.
Then my thyroid went wacky, but was undiagnosed, and again, I couldn’t lose the weight no matter how many hours I spent at the gym. In fact, the scale moved up again and I was beating my head against the wall trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Despite both of my parents having thyroid issues, it never dawned on me that I could have the same problem. Because I am brilliant.
By the time I got pregnant with Alex, several years later, my thyroid issues had been diagnosed (thank GOD I was suffering from an inability to get pregnant, or it would never have been picked up. Doctor’s don’t seem to be overly trusting of women who are “tired all the time” and “gain weight easily.” I’m altogether certain that my own doctor would have told me to “eat less” and “exercise more”–not bad advice, medically speaking, but I already WAS doing this) and I was down to what I weighed when I got pregnant with Ben.
Because I am (as previously mentioned) an idiot, I never thought to get an endocrinologist at this juncture, assuming that my OB would monitor this closely. Oh! how wrong I was, and Oh! how the pounds packed on no matter how often I was christening the porcelain god.
The thing is, when you’re either a) getting fatter or b) pregnant, people always assume it’s because you’re eating like a teenage boy. No matter how much you don’t eat or how well you do eat when you’re able to hold it down, people don’t believe you when you tell them what’s going on. They think you’re hitting up Krispy Kreme’s all day, every day. For example, when I was at one of my sicker points from about 6 to 9 weeks (I heart you hyperemesis! Can we be BFF?) I gained 11 pounds in 3 weeks.
Seriously.
I’m pretty sure that the only person who believed me was The Daver, because he knows that I wouldn’t lie about that stuff. If I was eating garbage, I’d have owned it. I have no reason to deny it to anyone else. I heart junk food, and would eat it more often if I could get away with it and still fit into my size 8′s. I loved him for that.
So again, after making a huge effort to eat well (although exercising was out of the question because at about week 10 into Alex’s pregnancy, my hips stopped, well, working and walking became excruciating) I found myself at the time of delivery at about exactly what I weighed with Ben, minus 10 or so pounds of water weight.
I resolved to breast feed those pounds off, just like La Leche League said I could! And nurse I did: 10, 12, 17, 20 hours a day, all while eating about 900 calories a day FROM DAY 1 POSTPARTUM. I joined a gym 6 weeks after he was born and went for at LEAST an hour a day 5 days a week. I wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t force myself to eat, and you can guess what happened to the scale, right? I gained 4 pounds.
I gained 4 pounds and my heart was shattered (to be fair, I had a bout of PPD issues that I was dealing with too and was sleeping very, very little.) I felt like a failure, like I was destined to be a fat chick for the rest of my life, and ended up crying my eyes out in the Gap when I went to buy non-elastic pants: I’d gone up 4 sizes since I last wore real pants.
All I wanted was some external validation from someone outside of my head to tell me that yeah, dude, this isn’t your fault, and I couldn’t seem to get anyone to tell me that.
My validation came many months later, in October of last year when I went into my OB’s office to have the PA look at my boob (not mastitis, it turns out, but a spider bite.) and she drew some labs to check my thyroid. Turns out where normal range is something like 0.4-2.0 (for people with previously diagnosed thyroid issues) and mine was….
….19.85
Um….yeah. No wonder I wasn’t doing well, even though I was on Weight Watchers.
Since then, I have been in titrated treatments and have finally found a decent dose for me (although I need a repeat blood draw soon) and have lost 21 of the pounds I’d gained, and that coupled with a 16 pound loss after Alex was born, means I’ve lost….simple math, Becky, you can DO it, 37 pounds since last March.
I hit a plateau in Weight Watchers in November, so I went off it in January (because why fucking bother?) and lost a couple more pounds.
Last week, after 2 weeks of going to the gym 3-4 times a week, I started back on Weight Watchers, telling myself that if I didn’t lose even a pound in 3 weeks, that I wasn’t going to bother. The scale had to move in the right direction if I was going to measure every damn thing I put in my mouth, right?
Today was the first day that I had to weigh in, and I wasn’t expecting much to happen. I’d been working so damn hard for so damn long to see results go in the wrong direction, and that’s just so fucking discouraging.
After months of no real progress, I have now lost 2 pounds. In a week.
What’s interesting to me right now is how much better that makes me feel. It’s such a minor change, really, in the grand scheme of things. It’s not like I lost 20 pounds in a week (although that might be cool, too) and it’s not like I’m not aware that the first weigh-in is typically the one where you lose the most.
It’d be one thing if I’d gained the weight the old fashioned way (eating my brains out) and I would say things like I did after I had Ben, “Damn those cheese fries we’re easier to put down than to take off!” and feel like at least I enjoyed the hell out of eating like shit.
Remember how fun it was, Ashley?
Maybe I can get the rest of this weight off before Alex’s 15th birthday, right?
37 lbs down, 17 to go.
Now if I could only tell my body to remove some of this booby fat, I’d be thrilled. My enormous breasticles seem to be my children’s gift to me, but I want to exchange them for a slightly smaller size now. They’re ridiculous.
————–
So what can buoy you out of the depths of despair and give you a sense that the Universe sometimes does really like you?
I’m suffering from a major bout of The Crankies and every time I go to write a post, it sounds like I’m just being a whiny damn bitch. Mainly because that’s exactly what how I’m behaving. Rather than bore you with the things that are annoying me (the oatmeal took too long to cook, the cats are following me around, people who stand over me waiting for my machine at the gym make me want to bash their heads in) I am going to post some damn pictures.
Maybe I’ll get over myself this afternoon and put something real up later.
Here is my bomb-diggity wedding cake, which happened to be the only successful battle that I won over The Wedding That Ate My Life.
These are my Metal Heads, and some of my oldest friends. And interestingly, although this was obviously at my wedding, my husband is nowhere in sight. Maybe he was fixing his makeup.
While it looks like a) I’m pregnant and b) that we’re having a moment, what The Daver is doing right now is reminding me that I cannot leave my own wedding. Pretty much most of the wedding I spent begging The Daver to let me go. Oh, and I’m not pregnant, it’s the pouffy thing under my dress making me appear this way.
(see Benner in the background?)
I know you’re probably all “what the hell is up with this chick and the pictures of her wedding?” And I would be too. It’s not like this was the best day of my life or anything (it wasn’t. Seriously.) and I want to relive it over and over.
It’s a matter of being Cranky AND Lazy. The rest of our pictures are on the computer downstairs (my house has about 4,874 computers. Seriously.
Aunt Becky done graduated.
Isn’t my face sexxy? I wish that were my driver’s license photo. Then I’d be beating dudes off with a stick. Both the kids are in this photo, but one of them is quite invisible.
Alex says “Get me away from all of these 6 year olds. They scare me!”
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