I can't thank you all enough for the OUTPOURING of support over the last 24 hours. Yesterday I shared my heart and our new adventure with you, and Meredith wanted to spend a few minutes today to write down some thoughts. I'll pass the mic over to her...
If you would've asked me what or who I was "expecting" Cece to be, my answer would've been nothing like who she is today. In some ways, that's hard to admit.
Behind all the smiley pics and the cute outfits and big bows, the past 2.5 years have been the hardest of my life. Cece has some issues that we had rarely spoken of in public until yesterday. Our lives have been flooded with doctor appointments, specialists appointments, and mountains of paperwork and therapies, and SO many questions... at times it was so much that I felt like I was drowning in an unfamiliar sea and nobody knew how to help.
I don't journal (how does Dale write this thing every single day?), and the closest I got was when I was gifted a "one line a day" journal for mothers to write about their little ones.
Well...
Behind all the smiley pics and the cute outfits and big bows, the past 2.5 years have been the hardest of my life. Cece has some issues that we had rarely spoken of in public until yesterday. Our lives have been flooded with doctor appointments, specialists appointments, and mountains of paperwork and therapies, and SO many questions... at times it was so much that I felt like I was drowning in an unfamiliar sea and nobody knew how to help.
I don't journal (how does Dale write this thing every single day?), and the closest I got was when I was gifted a "one line a day" journal for mothers to write about their little ones.
Well...
I stopped writing down milestones because she wasn't meeting them. I stopped believing in my ability as a mother because I couldn't meet her needs. And at some point I stopped praying about it because I was mad at God.
As you know, we got the official Autism Spectrum Disorder on Monday. I shed tears at the news, and even her sweet doctor cried with us. As the doctor was finishing up with us, Cece (unprompted) went to the doctor's lap and hugged her. It made us all smile! Typical Cece!!
It's incredible to me the story that God has authored for us and our "tribe." My parents moved to Fayetteville from Joplin within the last year and built a home less than 10 minutes from us. My sister lives just 6 houses down from us, and her youngest daughter, Lucy, will be in school with Cece as her constant companion. An entire group of helpers and nannies and therapists all love on Cece like she is their own. People say "it takes a village..." and we have the best of the best.
I'm no longer mad at God. In a way, I'm excited to see how this story will play out! All my life when people have told their testimony and asked what my testimony was, I never knew what to say. I realize now that I'm about to walk through mine. CECE is my testimony, and it's gonna be a good one! Just you wait!
~Mere
~Mere