Well difficult child 2 is now documented...

[totoro]

Our 3 year well baby visit was also a consult. pediatrician basically agreed with the Sensory Integration Disorder (SID) and wants her in Occupational Therapist (OT) now!!!
She feels she is definatley showing signs of a mood disorder and says lets just see how her brain develops, or if we move first.
We are going to try to get her into a pre-school, wait list for all in our area... She doesn't feel it is Autism, due to how high funtioning she is and how social... who knows. Her anger and anxiety are a concern.

It was sad to hear, but we have it documented for now. Our pediatrician just doesn't thing the early intervention program in our area is good enough... mostly very low functioning kids and she is afraid that it will set difficult child 2 back. I agree.
She wants her in with "normal" kids.

One step at a time... I guess this really pushes us to make a choice to move to a place with better options???

I just read an article in BiPolar (BP) mag, on if you would have children knowing you were going to possibly pass on a mood disorder? I am so mixed on this, and now that both of my children most likely have mental illness... I love them to death, but watching my difficult child 1 struggle I feel so bad for her and feel so guilty like I did this to her at times, I didn't realize at the time, I don't think I would have changed a thing. But reading the story made me think.

 

[SRL]

I'm sorry, Totoro. Even though you knew it was likely coming it still doesn't make it any easier when the official word is in.

She is still young for a firm diagnosis but interventions plus close observations from home and school will help when that time comes and in the mean time it sounds like you have enough to get interventions. As you already know I had a child in whom Autism would have been ruled out at age 2-3 due to being too high funtioning socially and verbally but in the end that was exactly the direction difficult child leaned in. At this age the areas I would recommend observing to help rule out Autism would be her play behaviors and speech patterns. Watch for lining up toys, etc in straight lines or formations, favoring atypical items instead of toys for play, repeating back your questions instead of answering them, repeating chunks of videos or tv programs from memory, speech that doesn't keep up with her peers, and/or developing adult sounding speech.

It's not easy to make happen but I do know of a few parents who have managed to get the school district to provide 1:1 aides to attend a private preschool with the child when there is no appropriate setting for a higher funtioning child. Doctor recommendation there of course would help.

It's been awhile since we've had a "Would we do this again had we known?" conversation here at this site. Parents are always all over the map on this one and there is no right answer. Personally when I realized the genetic connection to Autism I cancelled ;-) Baby #4 and had my going out of baby business garage sale. That message horrifies some people but I was 38 and already had 3 kids, one who was a major handful. on the other hand there's just no telling what is going to happen in the next generation. I have one parent who is bipolar and the other has traits of schizophrenia yet my other living sibling and myself have no mental health issues, despite having grown up in a highly dysfunctional home environment. My deceased sibling had difficult child-ness but that was due to brain damage at birth and not due to a mental health disorder. The chances of 3 children escaping mental health problems and two being highly resiliant to environmental issues aren't real high but that's my story and I'm sticking with it.

 

[totoro]

Thank you SRL and Nomad... It is a lot to think about. I am OK with it all. Just sad for our children's future. I just want so much for them and when I see the look in their eyes, the terror, the sadness all of those emotions it rips my heart out.

I am not giving up I will fight for them until the end, I am just having a mommy moment.

 

[flutterbee]

easy child is very resentful of difficult child and there is just a lot of animosity between them. I tell you that so that the next thing I tell you will carry the appropriate weight. A couple of months ago easy child commented to me that he didn't think difficult child would ever be able to live on her own. I've wondered that myself many times, but to hear it coming from easy child just shook me to the core. There is that selfish part of me that of course craves a life free from children at home one day, but mostly it's the sadness for what life may or may not hold for my child. It's the complete lack of helplessness I feel when faced with her despair because I cannot make it go away. I can provide her the resources and tools, but I can't do it for her and I just want to be able to so much.

I've been dreaming of babies A LOT lately. I've had 3 dreams in which I've given birth. Would I have another baby? I honestly don't know. easy child is very easy child right now. But he struggles with depression. It's all over my family. My maternal grandmother was un-diagnosis'd classic bipolar, her son (whom I never met and we now believe, but aren't sure, is dead) was un-diagnosis'd something - probably bipolar. And there are more self-medicaters in my family - both sides - than I can name which always points to mental health issues. I've struggled with depression for most of my life. difficult child had the disadvantage of a father who has obvious mental health issues, but I couldn't tell you what for sure. I tend to lean towards either borderline personality or anti-social personality, but there could be other things in there, too. So difficult child had a double-whammy in getting it from both sides.