Communication.

I want to share a glimpse into my heart with you all tonight. It might be raw and some of it will make no sense to you, but to others it will make all the sense.

A look inside my mind’s diary. I do not keep a journal or a diary, I always thought secrets or pain written down and hidden away did not make them real and give them the time and strength they deserve. As I started blogging, I realized I was doing the same thing. I was writing my pain down so that it would be “released” from me. And temporarily it was so. But I had to do much more work on this pain, much more introspection and sometimes I need to voice more to the world and sometimes less. So I stopped blogging, I didn’t feel like I needed the pain release and I didn’t feel like I was offering much in the form of information. But tonight after a short facebook conversation with a mom that get’s it. I felt I need to share with you all the hurt that still eats away at my soul. Every single day. The what-if I can NOT let go of. So let’s go back into some key times in our journey with Lottie and I will try to show you the gritty pain and promising hope that I am simultaneous walking through. 

Spring 2013- I laid there staring at the screen above me, willing the lady with the gooey wand to tell me it was a girl! I so badly wanted a girl! I had dreams, of dress up and barbies and theater and Disney and teaching her that women are fierce and not inferior. I longed for her to have a relationship with Neal that I have with my dad. I dreamed about the hours we would spend on the phone as adults talking about her life. I even pictured her in frilly dresses that twirled at 5, and a hopefully modest prom dress at 16 and I know I imagined her walking down that aisle. And here is the thing that I held most deeply to my heart, I longed to get to know this little girl. I longed/ long for her to talk my ear off and ask all of the why questions my mind can contain. I longed for her first true girl friendships. I felt all of this while laying there wiping the gook off my belly. 

July 2013- A beautiful baby girl comes into our world. 3 weeks early but seemingly 100 percent healthy. I dressed her in an adorable pink outfit to go home and Neal and I joked about the little girl this baby was going to turn into. She was already crying a lot! A lot! She we often joked that this child had a lot to say and would say it all very soon. 

November 2013- There is something wrong with your beautiful baby girl, but we think it is all muscle so it shouldn’t affect her speech or intelligence, we think, but we will have to wait and see. I spend hours on facebook finding moms whose kids had physical delays but not cognitive or speech delays. I was convinced this was us too. 

Fast forward a while…. No words, no vowel sounds, no real mumbling. Let’s get speech involved

2014-2016 - What would seem like minor strides but MAJOR ones to us. Charlotte said Mama, and Dada, then Elmo, then Nana, then started doing some babbling. We were so optimistic that she would just soar. Days creeped into months, into years. Our amazing speech therapist suggested picture boards and our favorite simple signs. Soon she was signing , more, all done, mama, dada, food, drink, and music. Then we started hearing “more” and “all done” Little steps but a Mama’s heart that was fragile as glass. One playdate with two other 3 year old girls, and a bit of the glass shattered. A piece fell to the floor as my tears quickly covered it. I had to let go of the need and hope, I had to let go of the yearning to talk to my 3 year old the way other Mommy’s talk to theirs. I spend hours on the floor almost jedi-mind powering Lottie to speak. To tell me what she needs, what she likes, what she is thinking. It aches to have this little being you love so dearly so close to you but yet lies a great wall of communication. 

I was a born communicator, I like to talk and talk and talk and listen and listen and listen to people’s stories, I understand people by what they tell me and by the words that they use. I get close relationships  this way. But this is not on my timing with Charlotte. I slowly let that fragile heart break because when all the unnecessaries are completely gone, I know my heart will be replaced with a stronger more understanding less whiny me. And maybe she will talk to me before that day, or maybe words the way we use them will never be for her. Please know I cry and hesitate as I write that. Because my heart LONGS for her words. Longs to know my daughter on that level. Today we were able to use a switch connected to a box connected to a lamp to get her to make a simple decision. She did. And I felt joy but I felt another piece of that fragile heart go again, knowing that this may be her way of communicating. That for years and years, we may be working with switches and ipads and artificial voices. Speach. It is one of God’s greatest gifts to humans. But those stripped of that ability are not stripped of God’s gift, the rest of us just have to let our walls down and see their gift. The light, the box, the switch.