After years of putting it off, I finally decided to share my story as an autism momma. Thank you for your kind comments and encouragement- it means the world to me. If this is your first time reading, start here. I’d love to hear more from you, email me.
It’s amazing what happens when your kid is on the line. We knew that we had a fight on our hands with the school district but…..really we did.not.know.
I’ll spare all the gory details of IEP after IEP and evaluation after evaluation. Or the ridiculously hard legal battle with attorneys, mediations and a trial. And lots of money. The bottom line is that the school district felt that J needed one thing and we knew otherwise. I don’t know what’s right for every child with autism, but I do know what’s right for mine. And after all the reading, discussing, praying- I knew what J needed.
I think a lot of people underestimated me (and Josh). They saw a young, frazzled mom and thought that I wouldn’t be willing to fight. But oh were they wrong. Really wrong.
In the end, we won. Would you believe? Another tally mark to add in the miracle section on our path.Because we won, our J had forty hours of therapy in our home a week. Looking back now I honestly don’t know how we did it. There were more people coming and going from my house than a busy Saturday at Costco (need I say more?). I was trying to keep toddler Julia out of the way, keeping my eye on therapy and trying to run a household at the same time. But I knew how essential this time was for our J. He needed these people to come to our house every day. He desperately needed a team of people to help bring him out of his autism shell.
I knew we had made the right decision when one day I told J I loved him and he said, “I love you” back to me. I burst into tears. I will never ever take for granted the value of those three little words. Especially the day they came out of my three and a half year old boy that had lost (or never really had) all his words.This path of autism has taught me many many many things. One very important lesson learned in the early years-you have to fight for what you believe in.
To do anything truly worth doing, I must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in with gusto and scramble through as well as I can. Og Mandino
I know I am not the only one-
what have you had to fight for that you whole-heartedly believed in?