I never realized I was a special needs mom until a year after our
first adoption.
It had never occurred to me that our new kidlets
were special needs. When I realized one day that they were
struggling academically, and moreover, that they had trauma, it hit
me like a ton of bricks.
An Aha Moment: they were special needs
kids.
Another ton of
bricks hit me when I opened my eyes to see that our bio son, now
diagnosed as gifted with ADHD (referred to as 2e), is also a special
needs kiddo, just on another end of a spectrum.
Whammy number three came when we finally discovered our bio daughter has autism – and were proved correct through formal testing and diagnosis.
Then we adopted 3 supposedly healthy, normal kids. Wrong! Huge special needs issues going on there, both behaviorally and academically.
In the past year we
realized our oldest bio daughter is also 2e: gifted and dyslexic.
Another bio son is likely gifted, as well (he’s just like his older
brother).
That leaves one bio daughter without any diagnoses at this
time, though I do suspect something at play. We’ll likely get a
neuropsych eval for her sometime next year.
For those keeping
score, that is 9 out of 10 kids with various special needs, all added
and/or diagnosed within 4 years.
To say we were thrown for a loop is a major understatement.
We’ve learned so
much along this journey, and yet we are far from knowing it all, far
from figuring out how to help them all. We’ve learned strategies,
we’ve learned burn out, we’ve learned survival and thriving.
We’ve attempted some strategies only to find they either weren’t
working, required too much time commitment or money, or just didn’t
feel right to us. What worked for 1 or 2 kids didn’t necessarily
work for the rest, or vice versa. We’ve had ups and downs, bumps
and bruises, sunshine and clouds, rain and rainbows, mountains and
valleys.
But through it all, we are a family. And God’s love binds us, holds us, forgives us, strengthens us, molds us, leads us. As a family.
And that’s what
being a special needs family is all about – leaning on God through
each and every day, one day at a time, good or bad.
