Transcript:

It was miles and miles and miles of road.

Field after field after field.

Wheat. Cabbage. Strawberries. Blueberries. Onions.

From August to December each year, I was traveling the country with my parents and my brothers and my sisters.

Indiana. Michigan. Ohio.

Then for the next half of the year I was a normal kid, quiet, to myself. I knew that I would not be able to participate in sports or band or organizations because our lifestyle didn’t allow it.

This was the life of the migrant family.

But as back breaking as the work was and as awkward as it was to walk back into classrooms with strangers year after year, the memories I have are fond. Our life was my normal.

I loved being with my family. As long as we were together everything was OK.

In high school I tested out of ESL pretty easily but still I never really had anybody talk to me about college.

I never really saw myself going to college. I guess because people in my family didn’t go and we were just so used to working so that was the plan. I would graduate and get a job.  But just a few months before high school graduation I was approached by a recruiter for the army.

This recruiter praised my high scores and said I was perfect for this opportunity.

You know, looking back I didn’t know anyone that had been in the service and none of my friends were joining but I said yes. I really don’t know why but I joined the Army.

My parents were very concerned about active duty and so I ended up joining the army reserves.

I still remember preparing to leave for basic training and we were actually up north working and had to coordinate flights from the state we were in at the time. It was stressful and sad because at 18, for the first time in my whole life I was completely alone.

At first, we would be gone for two weeks at a time for training with my recruiter relentlessly reminding me not to worry because I would NEVER be deployed.

Then 9/11 happened and two years later in December 2003 I was deployed to Iraq.

Back then women were not allowed to serve in a front line combat role so I was taught to be a water treatment specialist. I was in charge of making sure the water was running cleanly and safely for showers and toilets and in the cafeterias for food preparation.

Unfortunately, you did not have to be on the front line to see horrific things. The things that I saw were unbearable. Unthinkable. I don’t believe that any human brain was meant to see some of the things that I saw. The disfiguring injuries. The extreme trauma to body and mind. It was all around me for one year.

When I completed my service and returned home as a veteran, it was a tremendous readjustment for me. All of a sudden no routines, no structure. I decided to enroll in a certificate program at a local college but I got pregnant quickly with a guy I knew would not be a part of my life or my daughter’s life. Yes. My first baby was a girl and she was such a good baby. I did experience some postpartum depression and was alone a lot, but that beautiful baby knew how to make me smile.

I continued going to the local community college part time and I picked up a job at a local call center and I was able to finish my basics.

I was getting ready to decide on a college to complete my bachelors when I reconnected with an old friend from high school and then there was baby number two. My second daughter.

I decided to quit my job because childcare was adding up quick and this new baby really kept me on my toes!

She was crazy smart, almost too smart and such a big character.

I never stopped going to school and class by class, one my one, I received by Bachelor’s degree in criminology.

So I came to this proverbial fork in the road… start a career? Or have my last baby and then start a career?

About as quick as I posed the question, I got the pink plus sign. This time, a son.

So many things went wrong during my last pregnancy.

I was sick all the time like the majority of my pregnancy. I developed this horrible rash on all of my legs that was so inflamed, sometimes I could hardly walk. I also got a very rare type of mastitis while I was pregnant and had to undergo surgery, a lumpectomy, at 24 weeks. And just when I had finally started feeling better and the depression had kind of waned, I got the same infection on the other breast.

It was too close to the due date for surgery so I lived with the pain and discomfort and at 39 weeks I was induced.

My son’s birth was extremely traumatic with an epidural that arrived too late which left me pleading with the anesthesiologist as he left with his magical potions, “PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME! PLEASE HELP ME!”

It was too late. I broke down so hysterically that they began prepping me for a C-section knowing that I would not cooperate. And as I lay there in the most vulnerable state I have ever been in my life, my baby was born. Way before I ever saw the operating table.  

I don’t remember a lot. I know they took me to have my tubes tied and it was all just a big blur.

I was in and out quite a bit but I do remember waking up and the doctor telling me that my baby couldn’t keep food down.

He was throwing up, a lot.

He failed his hearing test on the left side.

He would need to follow up with the cardiologist because something about his heart just didn’t sound right.

I need to mention here that with each child that I birthed, I began to realize that what I thought was normal for years, was actually PTSD. As each year went by I was experiencing many signs and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder but I didn’t really know that’s what it was.

Like I would be driving and I had a super sensitive awareness of every sound of an engine rev, or I would wince as a car switched lanes. I was on high alert with white knuckles clenched at 10 and 2.

I was anxious even at home especially when I was alone with my children and their daddy was at work. I constantly checked the security system of my house to make sure it was in working order and every door had to be locked and every alarm had to be set and I would check and double check and triple check.

This constant worry made sleep impossible and I couldn’t seem to rest not even for a few minutes some nights.

All of this was exacerbated by every single baby and paired with postpartum depression and now this third baby, my first son, who was struggling.

When we brought him home he couldn’t keep food down.  My husband had to take him to the hospital several times for IVs and fluids.

As he grew the vomiting improved and I felt like there was light as he walked very quickly at 10 months and closer to a year he said a couple of words and all the sudden, about 18 months, he lost everything.

My husband was the first to notice. He said to me, “no tiene ningun chiste” which in Spanish means, he doesn’t smile or giggle or he’s not really giving us any response or seem like he is having fun with us.

My husband worked for a school district and knew of this online assessment that would help us determine if my son was delayed.

Well, the online assessment showed that autism was very likely.

No way. It can’t be, I thought. To prove the assessment wrong I took my son back to the hearing specialist to rule out hearing loss and his ears were perfect. I took my son back to the cardiologist to make sure his heart was OK and his heart was perfect.

Meanwhile I was still undergoing surgeries for this crazy mastitis mess and so two days after surgery I was rushing to a developmental pediatrician for a last minute opening.

The developmental pediatrician took some time with my son who tiptoed for an hour, paced the room with no response to any of her questions and in the end, she said the word.

Autism.

It’s funny how when you suspect something it’s so different when you hear it. When you actually hear it, man, it just becomes so real. I feel like every time I have an appointment it’s like ongoing trauma when they ask me, “Is he doing this? Is he doing that?”

No. No. NO. NO!

My husband is so positive but I usually break down.

I think I’m still grieving. I worry about the unknown. What does this mean for his life? Our life?

My son is only 4 years old and it seems like there is so much I still don’t know.

His neurologist, that we see often, lacks so much compassion and I leave every appointment feeling so dumb like I’m not a good mom because I get so overwhelmed by the emotion of just being there, just needing that kind of appointment, that it’s hard for me to even remember details.

I guess that’s part of denial? Grieving? Accepting?

I think the other part of my story that makes it hard for me to accept this reality is that my son, he’s very chill, he is so calm.

I don’t think he has an extreme case but maybe that is also lack of acceptance and maybe that’s extending my grief cycle? I don’t know.

He is still not potty trained. He doesn’t talk very much. He goes to speech and OT and physical therapy and he has been in a special education classroom since he was three. We have tried medications that help sometimes and slowly he’s making noises so I know he has to be pre-verbal. He can say some words like apple and ice cream but only when he wants to and we’ve been working on numbers with the help of wooden puzzles.

I feel like COVID happened during such a critical time in his development and I don’t know how that’s going to affect him later in his life.

I think for me my greatest fear is just wondering how independent he’ll be. How much longer I’ll be here for him.

My greatest dream of course is for him to be as independent as possible and although I don’t have regrets I do deal with a lot of guilt. 

I feel like my body‘s job was to keep him safe you know? Like maybe this was all because I was depressed or maybe because I was a veteran and the PTSD has been so debilitating. Maybe I didn’t talk to him enough because I was so sad and I was hurting. Who knows? 

I do know that there are many, many women who have gone before me and have walked this path.  

And I will follow. 

I will keep trusting my instincts and do all I can to give my son his best life. It is the most I can do. 

He deserves it.