She Carries A World On Her Hips

I wasn't sure about writing about this before, because it wasn't real to me.  I'm still not sure that it is real, and I don't know exactly what the future will hold, but here's my news:

Actually, here's my disclaimer: no, I'm not pregnant.  When I told Rachael and Dad that I had some news, both of them asked me if I was pregnant right off, so I know that's what people expect.  Quite frankly, I have wanted to announce that I was pregnant for some time, but it hasn't happened.  We have been half-heartedly trying for about two years, and admittedly it was not so much trying, per se, as it was not preventing.  Taking care of Benjamin is so much work that I'm not too sure it would be fair to him to divide our attention so much.  I know it would be too much for me right now, because a) I will not work full-time if we have more than one child, and b) we can't afford to live on Allen's income alone.  So there are plenty of reasons why it hasn't happened; though I might just need to accept that this family will only have three members.

The news that I was getting to before that tangent, is that Benjamin might be able to attend the Carmen B. Pingree school next year.  This school is one of the best resources for autistic children in the state of Utah.  It is not easy to get into (though it is considerably easier if you can afford the $20,000/year tuition), but it is definitely worthwhile.  A few months ago, we were told of an opening if we could pay the tuition.  I felt considerable guilt over not taking it, because we probably could afford it if we scrimped and saved and got friends and family to contribute.  I felt very selfish, because I didn't want to have to work two jobs and send almost every penny I earned to the school, no matter how good it was for my child.  When Benjamin was first diagnosed (January 2011), they told us about Pingree, and recommended that we talk to our school district. Well, we got on the waiting list for the "publicly funded" positions, and took Benjamin to Granite School District.  He has been in preschool for over a year now, and he has made considerable progress.  It is amazing to see how far he has come, but I know he has so far to go, if he is to have a "normal," self-sufficient adulthood.

Anyway, last week, I got a phone call from the Pingree school.  They told us that there would be a publicly-funded position open for the preschool next year (this coming fall), and they asked if we were still interested.  Um, yes!  So they sent out some paperwork and scheduled him for an evaluation.  I filled out the paperwork the other day (which took me a couple of hours to do . . .), and we went in for his evaluation today.  I didn't really know what to expect, but this is what happened.

We arrived shortly before 10am and went into the office.  A secretary took the paperwork from me, we briefly met a speech therapist, then we walked to one of the classrooms.  We left Benji and the speech therapist there, then I went upstairs to speak with Dr. Yao, one of the Child Psychiatrists.  We talked for about an hour, much of which consisted of me trying to rack my brain for when Benji reached certain milestones, what his first words were, when I noticed certain things, how he acted when he was a baby, etc.  It was difficult.  I don't remember what Benji's first words were, because he babbled for such a long time.  He still does, though I can make out actual words here and there (Benji is usually surprised when I do!).  I don't remember much of what he was like when he was a baby, because I went back to work full-time six weeks after he was born.  I do remember noticing that he was falling behind at about one year old, when he had just barely learned to crawl.  The delays got more and more pronounced, and we should have gotten some early intervention (another failure on my part), but I think I was still in denial that he might actually be autistic.

Anyway, we talked a lot about Benjamin, and a little about our family life (which I don't love talking about, since it usually ends up with me in tears).  He then took me to meet with Sara, a social worker, and we developed a care plan for Benji.  It just has some goals we can work for: a "Life Goal" of being self-sufficient, to go to school, hold a job, have social relationships, and to be as normal as possible.  The care plan also has some short-term goals.  They are: a) learning and developing communication skills, b) being able to recognize and acknowledge other peers and to develop parallel play, turn taking, and sharing skills, and c) to be able to engage in developmentally appropriate play and to become less rigid or restricted in the ways he plays with objects (which basically means to play with toys in the way they are supposed to used, i.e., rolling cars on their wheels, not turning them upside-down to see how the object spins).  All of these goals are to be accomplished by attending the day treatment program 30 hours/week, which includes intensive applied behavior strategies for skill development, with daily and weekly data collection to assess progress.

This could be a huge blessing for us, but I'm still not sure it's will actually happen.  During my meeting with Dr. Yao, he looked at one of the forms I filled out.  There were a bunch of statements, saying "My child does this," then there were numbers to circle which corresponded with certain aspects of a diagnosis of autism, things like social, physical, and verbal habits, etc.  Anyway, Benjamin's number was 81, and Dr. Yao said something about the cut-off being at 73, or something like that.  I don't know what that means--if they have a protocol to take kids who only fall within a certain range, or if Benji is more or less severe than his peers . . . I just don't know.  It worries me, because it all seems too good to be true.  I guess the team will meet together on Monday to discuss a treatment plan, and decide if he gets to attend or not.  They gave me a list of other resources, and they said they will contact us, so now we are in a holding pattern.  I'm hoping and praying it all comes together, even if I don't deserve such grace.

Because Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.