Today is Ethan's 12th birthday. It's impossibly hard to comprehend that twelve years ago today I was wondering what the hell just happened to me. I felt as if I'd been run over by a truck. Not to mention this baby that I suddenly had. It's such an odd thing when you have your first baby - or, well, at least it was for me - to become a mother in one swift instant. To realize that no matter what happens from that day forward, that you are unalterably change from the girl-woman you were into a mother. It's an incredibly, if a wee bit scary, thing.
This year has been full of great changes for Ethan. The least of which is his diagnosis, although of course that was pretty big. A year ago he was an inch and a half shorter than I, with a piddly sprout of hair on his upper lip just beginning to grow, and a rapidly deepening voice. Today he is a full 4 + inches taller than I am, shaving and sounding like a man. Also, he smells distinctly like a goat most of the time, but I digress. He has grown so much, not only in his physical self, but in his understanding of who he is and what he needs and although it's clear we still have a long way to go, he really has come such a very long way.
So, happy birthday, dear Ethan. You introduced me to parenthood. You stretch me and make me reach beyond what I think I can handle (sometimes on an hourly basis), you always make me laugh - even when you are simultaneously pissing me off, and you still let me hold your hand at the mall. In fact, you reach for mine more often than I can count and that, my boy, is an amazing gift.
There really wasn't a moment that I didn't know that Ethan was something different - I hesitate to use the words 'special' or 'not normal' because they are so loaded with negative judgement - but looking back, I knew, in my mama heart that the road ahead would be difficult, and that it would be a struggle at times. I also knew that I would do whatever it took to be on that road with him every step of the way. I remember one quiet moment in particular when he was just a few days old. He was in one of those exhausted, nursing induced comas and I just sat and held him, and cried. And I distinctly remember feeling bittersweet about him, recognizing that that moment was the most protected from life that he would ever be. It made me feel acutely sad and helpless and small.
Yesterday was the end of an era for me. A little over a decade of parenting in the dark. Of knowing deep in my bones that some things were not in alignment for Ethan, but unable to make anyone really hear that. We were told over and over that it was a stage, a phase, a pit-stop on the highway of growing up that would pass. We did everything we could for him without really knowing what it was we were dealing with. And we did a lot of those everythings right. So it was not a shock, or defeat, or even a disappointment to hear the experts say that yes, in fact, your son does have Asperger's Syndrome - an ASD. This news was received with relief. For him. For us. Today and going forward we have a new set of tools in our basket - understanding, support, funding, but most of all, we have validation. We aren't crazy overprotective parents with a difficult behaviour problem child. We aren't permissive parents with a child run-wild. We aren't inept, or undisciplined parents with a demanding rule the roost child. We are parents who desperately love this boy of ours, who want what's best for him, who want him to grow up and be a productive member of society. Whatever it takes to make the dots all connect for him to fully realize his potential - that's what we will do.
Today is not about mourning the loss of what might have been, or bemoaning what will never be. I've spent a good deal of time the last 11 and a half years doing that. Today is about celebrating a new beginning. And August 19th is the new anniversary of the day Ethan was knighted an Aspie. A celebration of embracing what you really are with all your strengths and weaknesses.
Because in the end, that's all we can really hope for - knowing oneself and growing from there.
