Confessions of a {New} Autism Mom

In September of this year we found out my oldest son officially has Autism.

I remember always wanting to be a mom. I babysat all the time growing up. I volunteered for everything involving children. I was a “secret weapon” for getting kids to go to sleep and I prided myself on getting other people’s kiddos to bed on time. I assumed this meant I would be an amazing mom and that it would come super naturally to me.

I remember sitting on the hospital bed just crying after they told me I would never be able to have children. I thought surely someone was joking. Me. The one people prophesied long before I had even met my husband that I would be the mother of nations. Now they are saying I’ll never have a child of my own? What about the dreams I had of my two sons? I knew their names!

The day I held my first son, I heard Heaven laugh with Joy. It was as if God was saying, “See what I did there?”

We defied odds. It felt good.

Until it didn’t.

My son spent about 24 hours in the NICU because his lungs weren’t pushing fluid out properly. This led to not being able to nurse. Very little skin to skin contact, and a pain in my heart I still can’t describe in words…only in tears.

And then motherhood was hard. So hard. My child would cry and cry and all my years of “training” went out the window with the bathwater because I couldn’t even get my own child to calm down. He constantly wanted to be held, and as a 97% introvert, this was fully exhausting to me.

As the years went on, we weren’t hitting developmental milestones like other kids. I shyly shared my concerns with other moms and was met with, “Oh you can’t compare kids. They’ll get there when they get there.” And I had his pediatrician telling me that I wasn’t reading enough to him and that’s why he wasn’t speaking any words — only gibberish.

Enter: mom guilt of epic proportions.

And I felt this for…oh…the last almost 5 years now. (Though is has gotten better!)

The same message played over and over, “This is your fault. You’re not a good enough mom.”

And then we had my second son. Easy pregnancy. Easy-ish delivery. Nursed like a champ. Immediate skin to skin. And I chalked it up to “first kid syndrome.” Like, hey, I got this now. We are two deep and I can probably do anything now.

Until we hit toddlerhood with him. And then we hit a new level of hard.

My oldest son is more sensory avoiding. He is terrified of loud noises. He doesn’t like his hair washed/touched. We can’t clip his fingernails and he eats exactly 5 things for dinner. He refuses to eat or touch many things with any kind of texture. Though he does love hugs and snuggling. A lot.

Then we have my younger son who is more sensory seeking. He’s constantly running and flipping and getting into everything. He has meltdowns of epic proportions (just like his brother) where we struggle to help him calm down. He also hates loud noises (or noises he perceives as loud). And now he’s developed a little bit of a stutter.

The short of it? I’m. Exhausted.

The hardest part in all of this is feeling super alone and feeling like so many don’t actually understand what we are working through right now.

Appointments, paperwork, therapies, trying to remember everything we need to keep the house running. Working. Trying to get the kids settled at daycare. Trying to learn a whole new skill set to be able to just TALK to my children…let alone raise them.

The other hard part is the judgment and the advice from generally well-meaning folks!

I see the side-eyes from more “seasoned” parents and their remarks of disciplining better (or whatever) are actually hurtful and sometimes confusing. Because as a parent, I want to do my best and the best things for them. But in this stage of everything, I genuinely don’t know what that is.

I just want to wear a shirt that says, “I DON’T HAVE ALL THE TOOLS YET!!!” (And maybe with a cute colorful little puzzle piece because I’m an Enneagram 4 and I need to be creative with my statements. Haha!) Because I feel like there’s an expectation of me to have this figured out by now. (The only person with that expectation might just be me, but regardless, it’s there.)

I am often my hardest critic — expecting that I would have this figured out by now. And also completely unsure of how to speak about my situation. When my kids are melting down or misbehaving, I feel a little stuck. Like do I explain that my oldest is Autistic and the other might be as well? Or do I not “box them in” so to speak and just “eat” the judgment? Often I just avoid most social situations right now until I feel like I have some more tools to be able to handle them better.

This is all so new to us. We are still figuring it all out. And it’s just downright hard.

But we know this is not a forever season! I debated writing this post because it really is not a fancy little “I’ve worked through this all now and here’s how you can get through it” post wrapped up in a pretty little bow. This is a real, “We are in the thick of it and don’t have a single thing figured out right now” post.

But we are madly in love with our kids and are committed to figuring this all out with and for them. We aren’t giving up on them. I may need to safely process how I’m feeling about everything, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up. It just means I’m sharing the things getting stuffed inside so that I can stay healthy and strong to be able to keep fighting…keep learning…keep growing for my boys.

They have a glorious future ahead of them. (And so do my husband and I!) And it starts now. Even in the hard.

We will get through this and come out stronger on the other side of this hard season. I know this because God is good.