I debated starting a blog for a while, but something about being vulnerable on the internet freaks me out. I’ve decided blogging about our life will both help myself as a way to vent my frustrations and feelings, and hopefully help others that might be dealing with something similar. It’s hard for me to be public about something so personal, and I debated just keeping everything private, but I think I need this blog as much as many people may want to stay updated on our family. This is a little back story, and the first of many posts about our journey to finding Calvin’s voice.
We’ve known for a while that Calvin was and is speech-delayed. If I’m being honest, I think my very first moment of concern was at his 18 month doc appointment and they said he should have been saying around 25 words. I thought to myself, “What exactly do they mean by 25 words?” I could think of 3 that he said most often, “daw” for dog, “duh” for duck, and “da” for Daddy. I tried not to freak out and just thought he would catch up on his own. Chuck was in and out of the field most of the summer and fall preparing for deployment, so I didn’t want to worry him about this unless I absolutely needed to.
To make a long story short, we suffered a miscarriage in April 2016. It was a long hard few months after that. Chuck was gone for weeks at a time, I didn’t have a lot of people to talk to that understood what I was going through, and we still really wanted another baby. Finally, I found out I was pregnant in October 2016. We went home to Florida for the holidays, and Chuck deployed in early January 2017. A few weeks later, I facetimed Chuck to tell him we were having a GIRL!
Calvin turned 2 in February and I was already planning to move back home to Florida for a few months while Chuck was gone. It was the best way for me to have help with Calvin while pregnant with Olivia, and being around family was a good thing for me. I told my employer about it, everything was great. My parents flew out to TX to help drive back with Calvin and me to FL. Calvin was due for his 2 year checkup shortly after arriving in FL, so once I got our insurance changed over, I made an appointment for him. I knew I needed to discuss Calvin’s speech development. The doctor said that by 2 years of age, toddlers should be saying 50-100 words and starting to put together 2 word sentences. Calvin was no where near that. I knew Calvin was behind in that area, but I had no clue that was actually a minimum milestone, and that most 2 year olds should actually be saying more than that. That was a bit of a gut punch. Here I was, trying so hard not to be the paranoid Mom and thought he would come along on his own and he could still only say those 3 words. Really, everything was “Duh? Duh? Duh?” as he is pointing to an object asking me to say the name of it. I wish I had inquired about therapy 6 months prior to that, but I tried not to worry. Calvin’s Daddy was in Afghanistan, I was 6 months pregnant, chose to move to FL temporarily to have the baby, and my son needed speech therapy. I took all the necessary steps to look into therapy while in FL, but there were only 1-2 places close enough to my parent’s house that took our insurance, and I couldn’t get Calvin an evaluation til June. I was going to be having a baby in June and moving back to TX, so starting therapy in FL was basically a no-go.
Fast forward to the first week of June. Chuck was able to get his command to send him home from deployment early for Olivia’s birth. He made it 2 days before I went into labor and she was born June 4. Everything went smoothly, I was over the moon that my husband was home and made it in time, and we had a new baby girl. Life couldn’t get any better at that moment.
We stayed in FL while Chuck took about a month of leave to spend with us. We all traveled back to TX to start our life together as a family of 4. Chuck and I had discussed speech therapy a few times, and once we were back home again, we decided it was definitely time to look into it. It took a few weeks to get doc appointments made, evaluations done, insurance referrals to kick in, etc. Calvin’s pediatrician thought it would be best to have him evaluated for Speech, OT, and PT just to make sure he’s not behind in any other areas, so we did.
At the end of August, Calvin was evaluated by a speech therapist and diagnosed with a Receptive and Expressive Speech Disorder. He is also non-verbal. He was also evaluated by an Occupational Therapist that specializes in sensory issues, and he has quite a few sensory issues too. We had him in PT for a couple months, but since gross motor skills are not really where he needs the most attention, we were able to cut out PT.
I grieved quite a bit over this diagnosis. I knew it was coming and I knew he needed speech therapy, but I think I was also in denial for so long that he would catch up on his own, or I really thought he was just a quiet kid and he would pick it up eventually. If there is any advice I can give to any mom worried about their child’s speech development, it would be to get your child evaluated AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Don’t wait. The sooner you do it, the better. There is nothing wrong with putting your child in therapy to help them get caught up to where they need to be developmentally. Early intervention is the best thing you can do for your child. My son isn’t even 3 yet, and I wish I had done it sooner.
As hard as it is some days to have a non-verbal child, I’m so hopeful. One day, I know he will speak. One day, he will tell me about his day. One day, I will hear him say, “I love you, Mom.”
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