Children with Special Needs

Fairy tales are only that. Somewhere along the lines learning that changes people. It did for me. Nothing is perfect. Sometimes its better then to be expected, and sometimes it takes life to show us that. I had a ten year plan, and I expected without interruption to follow through.

Expect the unexpected

Emilee Rose was born November 4, 2005 and as to be expected it was love at first site. She had a small amount of dark hair, a perfectly round head, and striking blue eyes. Cliche and wonderful all in the same breath. Everything was perfect. I had a nagging feeling something was not quite right, but for awhile I was able to push it aside. At about four months she was not rolling over and that concerned me. She was my second child but the doctor reassured me it was simply new mother fears. Their was a baby in her room at the daycare, named Patricia, who was born in the same week as Emilee.  I remember thinking “Wow she does so much more then baby girl.” Things seemed slow, but constant reassurance from everyone that children develop at their own pace kept my anxieties buried inside. I took my first sigh of relief when Emilee was 12 months.She started speaking on target with what was developmentally normal. Then one day that was gone, and their my husband and myself were laying in bed watching Television and he began to cry. “Something is not right with baby girl.” For the first time my fears were externally verbalized by another and it scared me. I wanted more then anything to be “just a new mother with new mommy fears”. The next day I took her to the doctor, and she finally listened. I was given the number for early intervention services and a referall to a local childrens hospital. We started the process immediately. Emilee was evaluated by the early intervetion Co-op and services started. Nine months after the referall from her doctor she was finally evaluated at the Children’s Hospital. A friend told me that was quick to get in.

A few road blocks

In the ideal world we would have agreed with the recommendation and services rendered. We wanted a speech therapist at least weekly and we got an early intervention specialist biweekly. Low funding in the program was a major cause of frustration. After five months of feeling disgruntled with the services myself and my husband were at our wits end. We saw little improvement. In our mind our daughter was not getting the amount of attention she needed. We decided the services were not beneficial and we discontinued. Approximately a month later we finally were able to meet with the best of the best in children psychologists. After months of waiting, and numerous tests we were given a catch all diagnosis. Disorder of Childhood and Adolescence not otherwise specified and Global Developmental Delays. We felt frustrated, back at square one and running out of options.