Speech

I've had this blog drafted for 2 weeks now.

Facebook memories have become bittersweet since becoming a Mom. Once Seth hit a year old I was flooded with his little newborn face. Now I'm seeing both of them after Lucas came home and it boggles my mind how Lucas now looks just like Seth did then and before I know it Lucas will look just like Seth does now!

A couple weeks ago my memory was a picture of Seth and I. It brings tears to my eyes thinking of the little baby face he still had. He was so young, yet we were expecting more from him than what he was giving us. The caption on the photo asked for unspoken prayers. We were headed to get him evaluated by a speech therapist.

I remember sobbing day after day in that chapter of life. Literally. Every. Day. I was embarrassed to tell people. I felt defeated. I felt hopeless. I felt guilty. I felt scared. I felt protective. I felt overwhelmed. I remember sending voice messages to a few people asking them to pray and I couldn't even get through them without falling apart. I didn't even know what I wanted them to pray for, but I needed prayer.

But, one thing I never felt was uneasy or anxious about what we were doing. He had just turned 2 two months prior, and although almost everyone in our world told us to give him time, I knew in my Mommy gut that this needed to be done.

The past year has been the most exhausting, frustrating, burdensome and emotional roller coaster since becoming a Mom. I'm embarrassed and ashamed but I'll be raw with you guys. (I might need to read this again someday - or maybe there is someone else out there). There are still a lot of tearful days. There are days I just want to be done. Days I just wish he was "normal". What is "normal" anyways?

Since it's been a year he was evaluated to see if his progress is on track. First they tested his receptive language (how well he can understand what we are saying) She tested him on the 3-year-old level and said he blew through the test and was off the charts. He scored as a 4 year and 8 month old!

The next week he was given two other tests. His articulation test scored in a severe category but we all expected that. A lot of the pictures in the book were hard and she wasn't allowed to prompt him. He wasn't even given that test during his first evaluation because he didn't have enough sounds for it, so just the fact that he was able to be tested for it now shows a ton of progress. It had a lot of combined sounds like 'pl', 'tr', 'ch' that all have to be graded together and he just isn't quite there yet.

Then she tested his expressive language and he scored as a 2 year 6 month old! I was actually preparing myself for him to be in the 1-year range, which seems crazy to say, but I (and his therapist) was pleasantly surprised with those results.

This blog post looked a lot differently when I first drafted it. We had found out his receptive scores but not the other two. I was anxious. I was flooded with all those feelings again. I've always struggled with worry and becoming a Mom has only made that worse. There are so many things you could worry about and dwell on - and those are just the obvious ones! You don't think about whether your child will be speaking or not when you are trying to figure out whether Pampers or Huggies are the better diaper! This is just another one that I have to fight the devil on. This is one I didn't see coming. This is one I wasn't prepared for. The devil knows I'm an easy target and I fail many days. But I have a lot of victories, too. I have a box full of reminders of times that the Lord REALLY showed Himself and came through for me. It's a good thing for me to have sometimes. I know we are doing the right thing. I know Seth is making great improvements and I know he will continue. I trust where we have him. And at the end of the day, God loves him even more than I do (how crazy is that!) and already holds his bright, bright future in His hands.