Part 1 of this story is here. You’ll want to read it first.
I want to try and tell you what it felt like to be told how significant Sophie’s developmental delays were. Not just to be told, but to understand that you don’t know what you thought you knew. That your reality is…not reality at all.
We buried my Grandpa on Wednesday. Sophie had speech therapy that day, and as she and Joshua were too young, I felt, to attend the funeral, we sent Joshua to school and my friend Luanne took Sophie for the day and took her to therapy. I sent a note with Luanne, asking Tanya, her therapist to call me.
Tanya called me on Thursday. I think I went over the list of the preschool teacher’s concerns with her. And then I asked her, “So can you tell me, how far behind on speech is Sophie? Like, six months, a year?”
That was what I thought. Six months, a year max. After all, Sophie was three years and 11 months old, and she had known all her letters since age 2, all her colors, shapes, etc. She even could recognize several words. She had a great vocabulary, but she didn’t converse or answer questions. I knew she was smart. And stubborn. She was smart, sweet, and crazy.
“Her delay is significant.” Tanya said.
“Significant?”
She then rattled off some test scores, and then admonished that “standardized tests are not the end-all be-all.”
“How far behind is she?”
“Her test scores were that of a child aged two years and four months.”
Sophie was three years and 11 months old.
“How long do you think she’ll need therapy?”
“She will likely need therapy for three to four years.”
Suckerpunch. No words. I don’t remember the rest of the conversation, except that Tanya offered to write a letter to Sophie’s teachers telling them how they could help her and what sort of expectations they should have for her, and to call and talk to them about it.
More crying. I called my husband, and my mom. Cried some more. I made an appointment with Sophie’s pediatrician. My mom started making calls to get information about getting Sophie into a preschool program that would be more appropriate for a child with her level of language delay.
Immediately, even through our shock and grief (yes, grief. This sort of thing, a friend told me, has to be grieved.), we got the ball rolling on getting Sophie back on track. A pediatrician appointment, a referral for an occupational therapy evaluation (they couldn’t get her in for three weeks), and phone calls and appointments to get Sophie into a preschool program for kids with developmental delays in our local public schools. And almost immediately I started working with her at home on her hand strength and cutting as well as her speech.
But I was scared, you guys. I was so, so scared. I cried for days. Howling, wailing, keening. Like, I lost my sh*t. For at least two weeks, I would say probably close to a month, I didn’t talk to my close friends about any of this. I couldn’t talk about it without wailing. I am pretty sure Bobby thought I would never be normal again. Joshua, who not quite seven, asked over and over, “Why is mommy crying?” Sophie didn’t say much but did wipe away some of my tears at times, and snuggle me. Really the only people I talked to about it were Bobby, my mom, and Emily. And Emily I just talked to about it over instant messenger because I can’t wail over instant messenger and therefore was much easier to understand. I think I texted Cortney a little about it. As much as I could stand. I wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed or angry, but I was terrified. “What if she can’t learn?” I asked Bobby over and over. He tried to reassure me. I KNEW she was smart, I KNEW she could learn, after all, it was because of all she COULD do that I had failed to realize how much she couldn’t do.
My mom told me that first day, that Tuesday, “The Lord made her, and the Lord’s going to take care of her.” I held on to that. I cried and prayed to God, to help me to help Sophie. To do the right things for her. To put the right people in our lives to help her.
Praying comforted me, and I know God heard me. But still the fear. The fear was paralyzing.
To be continued.
Part 3 of this story is here.
