Growing out of labels

At out last appointment at the Achieve center I was told something I hear often and it drives me crazy! Call me nitpicky but it really got on my nerves.

While Grace meets with her therapist I meet with a counselor (not sure if she is a behavioralist or family counselor). We watch her through a 1 way mirror and talk about whats going on, suggestions, etc. On Monday she said to me, " Within 2 years Grace will grow out of her diagnosis." I want to make a couple statements you may or may not agree with, but just bear with me and hear me out. 1. I do NOT believe autism is a diagnosis you grow out of. Nor do I believe any diagnosis is one you grow out of (ie depression, bi-polar, diabetes, etc). 2. I do NOT believe it is wrong to label your kid.

Now that I have probably offended half the people reading this, I would like to explain myself. When someone gets a diagnosis, we are all so quick to "fix it". To make it sound better. So we tell ourselves things like, oh it will go away; or they will outgrow it. I do not believe a child with autism will outgrow it. I do however, believe with all my heart, they will learn to manage it. I absolutely believe my daughter will go to a regular school and as she gets older, no one would ever guess she is labeled autistic. That doesnt mean, if something changes she isnt expecting she will handle it like any other kid. That doesnt mean if she doesnt get enough sensory input she will jsut deal with it. It means, that she will learn to manage it. She will learn coping skills that will allow her to adjust. We may not have to carry chewy tubes, but she will probably carry gum. We wont have to carry fidgets, but she will doodle. We may not have to brush her, but she may have a way to get deep pressure massage at home. This still means, if you surprise her she may not like it. She may not be super outgoing (or maybe she will be!), she may not like to be touched certain ways, and certain things may always upset her. She will grow up to be the person God has intended her to be. Autism or not, she is not defined by it, but it IS a label!

Now to the part I am sure I have offended everybody with! We often avoid seeking help for our kids for fear of the dreaded label. Whether we label a child or not, they are labeled. You are labeled and I am labeled. There are labels that are very hurtful and wrong, I am certainly not going to argue that. No child should ever be called retarded, crippled, strange, ugly, fat, or many other hurtful words. When you hear label, those are likely the words that come to your mind. I think its to easy to forget, there are other labels out there too. Beautiful, sweet, smart, kind, honest, helpful, outgoing. I can make the list of good labels much easier than the list of bad. For so long we have been afraid to allow any sort of label to be put on people. We are the ones who have made a label a bad thing. I think we could be the ones to make it a good thing! I am not afraid for my child to be labeled autistic. Along with that label, comes smart, beautiful, mischevious, frustrated, and many other labels. I dont see any of them as bad. Just like our words can be hurtful, labels can be used to hurt people as well. I think, just as we teach our children NOT to use the hurtful words, we could also teach people NOT to use the hurtful labels.

Just some thoughts that have been rolling in my head. I dont in any way want to offend anyone with it, I just wanted to share how I felt.

New additions in the Fiedler house!!!

Last Thursday was an eventful day in our house! The season premier of Grey's Anatomy was coming on. I am a HUGE fan, so I was excited to watch it. We also have Awana on Thursday from 6:30-8 and I am a listener there so I am there from 6-8. Emma earned her first book and vest and Grace earned her Cubbie book! Yay girls!! Emma was VERY excited to get her vest, and when she found out she would need to wait for it to come in, you can imagine the meltdown that followed! Grace was ecstatic to have her new book and just wanted to look at it. I wanted them to get home and go to bed so I could watch Grey's! The last week or so I havent been feeling the greatest. I ended up in the walk-in with chest pain one day and have been dealing with a cough and just general achiness. So I am sure you can imagine the chaos in my house! I managed to get the girls home and in bed by just a couple minutes after 8 and settled down to watch Grey's. I have been off of birth control for about 10 months, so when I go to the Dr, the first question I get is, "could you be pregnant?" the answer frequently ended up being I dont know. As a result the last time I was at the walk-in they wouldnt put me on antibiotics until I knew for sure. I called Aaron right after I sat down and asked him to pick me up a test just to make sure I wasnt then I was heading in Friday morning to ask for antibiotics to try to clear up whatever was going on with me. After waiting another 1 1/2 hours (in which I nearly peed my pants!!) Aaron came home with a test. I rushed to the bathroom to take the test. At first glance, it was negative. As I leaving the bathroom I went to toss the test and realized...... there was a +!! I called Aaron in to make sure I wasnt seeing things. His reaction was hilarious! The lines were not the same shade of darkness (which they do not need to be!), so he didnt believe it. I took another one in the morning and then headed to the fastcare for confirmation. Its official! The newest member of the Fiedler house will make his/her appearance the end of May or beginning of June!

I am a mix of emotions (and nausea!) right now. I am VERY happy to be having another. I have felt strongly for about a year that I wanted another child. Part of me is sad to know this will be my last. Part of me is scared to have another child that could be on the spectrum, but I firmly believe God would NEVER give me more than I can handle! I have an amazing God who will take all my troubles and carry the burdens so I dont need to! Overall, however, I am ecstatic! I had a blast telling everyone about it! I am definitely not one who can wait several months before sharing the news! I think the best reaction I got was from my mom. She is on a trip and I insisted she call me, I wouldnt e-mail her, so when she called I told her I had her anniversary present. There was a split second of silence and then she put it together right away! Aside from the morning sickness with my second child, I have always loved being pregnant and have been very blessed with 2 easy births!

The one concern I have is how crazy our lives are over the next year. Grace has started therapy at a new place, she starts school in a month, and in Feb. Congo comes home! Emma is in school and adjusting to a new and much busier schedule. I am looking into finishing my last year of school! I have made some great friends since moving here, and I am happier here than I have been anywhere else we have lived. I know that I have friends I can turn to, and I definitely feel my relationship with God and grown and been challenged since moving here also. Even though there are some scary things going on, the good DEFINITELY outweighs the bad! I cant wait to see all the things that are going on! I look forward to sharing them with you as we go through them!

Achieve Center

I'm sitting in my house, and its a wreck! Let me tell you, there are all the dishes from dinner (and of course we have friends over so there are twice as many dishes as normal!) still on counter, the carpets need to be vacuumed and swept, there are clothes (clean and dirty!) everywhere that need to be folded and put away. Do I even need to go into how the playroom looks? One of my biggest struggles as a mom is how my house looks. I feel like I am constantly apologizing for the mess and making one excuse or another for it. There are certainly days where dishes get done, laundry is put away, and I would eat off my floors. Having 2 kids and dog, however, these days are few and far between! My days are often full of diapers, wiping away tears, playing mediator, and cleaning up whatever mess I can get to. They are also full of games, make believe, exploring, and playing outside. There is a twist to my life though. It is also full of therapy appointments, evaluations, and meetings. I have a 2 year old with PDD-NOS, a form of autism. She also has a Sensory Processing Disorder. My daughter is beautiful and smart and incredibly fun and funny! Her older sister is amazingly smart and SO advanced for her age. Another part of my life is spent constantly looking at Grace and weighing whether what she is doing is normal 2 year old behavior, what is extreme, what do I need to interrupt, change, ignore, respond to. I also constantly struggle to NOT compare her to Emma. Emma was so far ahead of everything and is SO well adjusted and just a great and easy kid.

Ever since Grace got her diagnosis at 18 months my life has changed. I never questioned her diagnosis (although many around me have and still do!), and I did "all the right things" that I was supposed to do. I started the paperwork to apply for ABA therapy for her. That was my whole end all be all goal. I quit my job so that I could pursue therapy through them and put my whole dream career on hold. After months of waiting, a move across the state, and a new job for my husband (which promised initially to hold the opportunity to seek therapy through his new jobs insurance) and filling out all the paperwork and getting a second opinion, both of which strongly recommended ABA therapy..... we got turned down. Every avenue we have pursued has been turned down.

It is very hard to hear no, when you know that is the best option for your child. The thing I realized I was forgetting, was that it was SO important to me to get the best for my child, I forgot I already had the best. I have God. Who could possibly have a more vested in my child than the one who made her?!? One of the most quoted versus about children in the Bible is, "Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.'" Matthew 19:14 Also in Mark Jesus says, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me..." Mark 9:37. If the Heavenly Father whocreated my child is taking care of her, who cares if I get therapy or anything else for her! This has been something I have struggled with off and on the last year. And like always, when I finally let go and said "God I am putting this in YOUR hands and not mine" then a solution shows up!

Many of you know in February we will be getting a service dog for Grace. Its been an up and down roller coaster of emotions from excitement to fear about paying for it, back to excited about the effect it will have on Grace. Where do we go from there though? I have been thinking a lot about the long term for Grace. We all know what she is capable of, but how to get her there. Well today we got a taste of that answer!

Through a set of circumstances that were definitely led by God I finally managed to apply at the Achieve Center. I did this knowing nothing about it except that since we have moved I have been told over and over I should go there. Even after applying there I knew nothing about it! Yesterday we had our meeting with them to set up a treatment plan (I was certainly confused at first since they had never even met Grace!) We now have a plan with them where they will meet with her 2x a week and work on ABA therapy, play therapy, work on her social interactions, work on her emotions (mainly the aggression and anxiety) and even incorporate some sensory therapy into it (although they dont call it that). When I told them about the dog their first question was, can he come with her? I was ecstatic! Between the Achieve Center and what she is getting from school and Congo, she is getting more and better therapy than I had ever dreamed for! I was convinced the only answer was 20 hours intensive ABA therapy in my home, but once I let go of my plan and my control over it I got something WAY better than that! She is getting therapy is several different social settings that are going to focus specifically on those goals we havent yet met for her! PRAISE GOD! :)