My Berrykin

I've been waffling all day about whether or not I wanted to post something about this publicly. I'm still processing, after all, and sometimes that makes for bad posts. But, really, I feel like I need to post *something* and I don't want to do it on Facebook. Not yet, anyway, until I've had a chance to wrap my brain around it.

A month ago, Berrykin had a low-level skills evaluation to see if he qualified for free preschool. Based on the results there - "yes, he has some delays" - they scheduled him for an in-depth evaluation with three professionals.  We had that exploration today.

They were all lovely women. They commented several times about how lovely and sweet Berrykin is, and what a gentle soul he has. It was nice to hear, but the entire time, a voice was whispering in my ear that they were prepping us for bad news. Reassurance before it's needed.

My 4-year-old talks like a 2-year-old. I knew that already, but they made it official. The way they evaluate, they give a "he talks solidly for __ age," and then they average all the skills together to arrive at a general age of development. So Berrykin talks solidly for a 15-month-old, and all his skills averaged together put him at 2 years.

I knew this, but it was still kind of devastating.

Worse, though, were the red flags.

There's a good chance my baby has an autism spectrum disorder. Since today's ladies weren't medical professionals, they weren't qualified to made a diagnosis. But everything they pointed out were things I'd noticed before. Things I've been worried about. Things I was too scared to tell anybody about. Like the fact that he's only just started hugging back. Or how he likes matching the colors rather than building with his blocks. He gets really preoccupied when his hands are dirty, and freaks out over loud noises. And he get so intensely focused...

Part of me says, "Look at how your brothers turned out - they're awesome! Brilliant! Good people! And they're definitely on the spectrum even if they weren't ever officially put there." But then the other side says, "But it made at least one of their lives so HARD as a kid." And then I try to remind myself that help for this kind of child has improved enormously since then. That he'll get to go to his free special ed preschool where his teachers will be wonderful and he'll get the sort of help I'm not qualified to give him.

And then all of me just sobs, because...my baby. I ache for him, and I can't make it stop. I feel guilty for not addressing it sooner, but mostly I just ache. It's an ache that pervades my soul and breaks my heart, over and over and over again.

Ironically, that ache is exactly the reason I decided not to have kids back in 2008. That decision lasted for all of two weeks before Jeremelon convinced me that kids were my everything and I would regret not having them forever. He was right, of course, but I think on some level, I knew.

The day got topped off by the berrykin running a fever. I freak when he gets sick - I was okay originally, but when he had trouble breathing from croup and flu at 2 and a half, I lost all ability to be okay. Most of the time, I have the energy to tamp down the freakout and carry on, but right on top of this...I'm so tired.

But at least he felt yucky enough that he was okay with me snuggling him a ton. That's a plus...sort of...