Worries

I know I'm a total see-saw when it comes to my worries about Elijah. Some days I can calm my fears, and others I am so so SO worried and cry about it. Today was a crying day.

We went to the Early Years Centre in Fenwick today and he had his assessment/screening done. He only gets a mark for tests he performs correctly, so even if we can't manage to get him to do the test AT ALL he gets a score of zero, and it's not graded out of anything less. So he got 6 out of 12, where there were at least 2 tests that he didn't do. I feel frustrated because I feel like he can do the things he didn't pass on, but doesn't do it often still, and wouldn't do it in that setting. The two things were pointing or grunting to get what he wants (he was in a freak-out-and-cry-for-things mood this morning) and responding to one-word commands, like "Give" or "Up." I know he can do that one, because he responds to "Out" when we're in the bathroom, and I'm not sure, but I think he understands "Up." In the morning when he gets up he hands over his soother when we say "Soother", but I don't know if it counts because it's only used in that one context, but then, so is "Up" so I don't know.

I just feel frustrated. I know he's behind in speaking, I don't really need a reminder of that, and I'm doing everything I can. I'm just so worried about it. I WANT him to talk, it's one of the milestones that I've been most excited about and waiting anxiously for, but it's not coming, and I'm getting so discouraged. I just want him to be normal. It hurts, too, when Terrah is around, because she is babbling SO MUCH. Like, using intonation and everything, and then last weekend when Rachelle and Terrah were here for a few days, Terrah started repeating "No" and "Yeah" when anyone said it. It hurt so much because it's so cute and I wanted Elijah to do that MONTHS ago. Just repeat a word, he doesn't even have to know what it means. But no.

At the same time, I feel like he's started babbling a lot more over the last week, making consonant sounds, and sounding a little more like he's conversing and not just grunting or using vowel sounds, so that at least is encouraging. I have a hard time focusing on the little gains he's made, though, in light of how behind he is. It feels like he'll never talk. And I cry just writing that, because what if I turn out to be right? I can't stand that thought.

What's adding to all of this is the fact that I've been struggling with depression. I feel like such a terrible mother, like I didn't interact with him enough when he was younger. People would say, "No, you're a great mom!" but they weren't home with me on the countless days where Matt would go to work and I would just sit there, staring at Elijah, unsure of what to do with him or how to make him happy, and feeling like a moron for talking with him, so I just wouldn't. It wasn't until he was around a year that I started pulling out of it, interacting with him more, labeling objects, talking when we're in the car together. I feel like the reason he's behind in talking is that he's had this depressed mom who wasn't teaching him to do all of the things that he needs to learn, and it hasn't been until recently that we've been asking him to do things and giving him commands, so of course he doesn't know how to respond to that either.

I can't help but feel like it's all my fault. I feel so much guilt surrounding this, and everyone I talk to assures me that he'll develop normally yet, their kids didn't talk until late, I'm doing a great job, he wouldn't be behind because of me, blah blah blah, but I don't believe a word of it. Especially knowing that maternal depression has been linked to speech and other developmental delays. And knowing that makes me feel like a jerk.

I've been doing better over the last few months, I KNOW I have. I don't call Matt at work, crying my eyes out, that often anymore, whereas before it was every day. I've been making a bigger effort to keep the house clean, play with Elijah, keep the t.v. off, etc etc. At the same time, I'm worried about it happening again. Today, for instance, has been a hard day for me, and I just have not had the mental energy to interact with Elijah much. So tomorrow, at my midwives appointment I'm going to ask Mylene about going on Effexor. If she thinks it's a good idea, then I think I will. I want to see how and IF it changes how I feel, if it takes away the "I don't want to get out of bed today" feelings I have, and if I just do better. I don't want to repeat this mistake with our next baby, and I want to be the best mother to Elijah that I can be.

I love Elijah so very much, and it would be an understatement to say that it pains me to think that he isn't perfect and healthy and normal, and to think that I am the cause of it. I've been praying and praying so hard that everything really will turn out to be fine, but maybe I need to just pray for direction and peace.

Another thing that I worry about and feel a large amount of guilt over is that, with Abigail, I'm going to KNOW all of this. I'm going to know to get help so that I interact better, talk more, teach her things sooner that Elijah is just being taught now at 16-months. For instance, I didn't know that you teach them to sit up by sitting them up! I thought it just was a natural progression from rolling to creeping to crawling to sitting up to standing to walking. I had NO IDEA until Elijah was 9 months old and NOT sitting up yet that I was supposed to be doing it all along. So I feel like he's so disadvantaged, and I'll know these things with Abigail, and then she'll develop faster, be ahead, won't suffer from these delays that Elijah is, etc. And THEN I worry that these delays will affect Elijah in the long-run, like in school, and that Abigail will do better than him simply because I did better with her.

Ohhh the guilt and worries. I don't even know what more to say about it, except that I'm worried sick.