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August 11, 2002
I would like to a little background on Jaida. There are a lot of things about her infancy and toddler days that still stand out in my head.
My daughter Jaida Simone was born on March 2, 1998 at 4:07 pm on a crisp spring afternoon. She weighed 8 lbs, 3 ozs, and was 21 3/4" long. I thought she was perfect in every way. I admit I felt the depression creeping in before I even left the hospital. We tried to establish a good nursing relationship but she was a very sleepy baby. I had to work to keep her awake during a feeding. I thought once we got home she would perk up. We continued to have difficulty at home. My nipples bled and blistered until I could not take it anymore. Another challenge was her adverse reaction to almost everything I ate. She seemed to have permanent gas. I gave up and put her on Isomil at three weeks. She barely noticed the switch because I had already begun to pump and feed her EBM from a bottle. I felt defeated and relieved not to be her sole food source at the same time.
There was no question about going back to work. We simply could not afford for me to stay home. I was nearly hysterical at the thought of leaving my baby with someone while I went to work. Thank God my mother said she would be able to keep her. I wasn’t sure how she would do it, but she was willing and I was desperate. (My mom has emphysema, diabetes, carpal tunnel, arthritis and she was recovering from surgery to control reflux.) She had already watched Jaida for short periods while I ran errands. I felt confident that she could do it with God’s help.
Around the five or six week mark I noticed something strange. If I took Jaida to a place with lots of people during the day, she would cry for hours that night. I didn’t know how to make trips to the store or Wal-mart. At home she was vocal and easily engaged; in public she was quiet and uninterested. Once, I took her to a baby shower and that night she was inconsolable. I had long since stopped nursing, so it couldn’t be gas, right? I gave her mylicon anyway. I thought that maybe she had been over stimulated from having so many people in her face for an hour. I took her to the front of our house so Steve could get some sleep. He kept asking if she was okay. I told him I wasn’t sure. I have never felt so helpless in my life. We had many more nights like that until Jaida was nearly five months old.
Over the next few months the mild PPD I was experiencing became full blown. Jaida was not a good sleeper and I was beginning to think I would never sleep again either. Around Christmas I could not get excited about the holidays or my baby’s first Christmas. I didn’t even want to put up a tree. My mom commented on my constant dark moods. We didn’t have much extra money and that made me even more depressed. I invited my divorced parents and my brother to have dinner at my house. My mom didn’t want me to bring Jaida out in the cold anyway. I had a terrible empty feeling the whole day. It was like watching a movie starring myself. I was so detached. I smiled thru all the family visits and played the happy wife and mother. Nobody had any idea of what was going on inside my head. (In the interest of keeping this short, you can read my PG diary or post on my TTM board if you want to find out how I got better.)
Jaida seemed to be developing normally in every department except communication. She had never so much as uttered my name at nearly ten months old. I mentioned it at her nine month checkup but our pediatrician was nonchalant. I tried not to think about it as much as I could. Her cousins that were close in age were saying at least ten to fifteen words and gesturing for what they wanted. I tried to comfort myself with the thought that each child is different. She started walking at seven months so may be her other skills just had to catch up. There was plenty of time, right?
When we got to her two year checkup, there had been little progress. When Dr. W asked how many words she had, I was stumped. We had never really heard her say much of anything on a daily basis. I was honest and I told her maybe ten. With more exclamation then she meant to express she repeated, “Ten” as she raised her eyebrows. I guess I must have looked worried. Dr. W immediately began to reassure me. It could be her personality; she could be shy, etc. I half-heartedly agreed and we wrapped up the visit. Over the next few days, I was more worried than ever.
During her third year, Jaida began to use one to three word utterances. If she was thirsty, she would say, “Juice” or “Milk” but never a full sentence. She would walk up to us and say, “Peanut butter sandwich” or “Chicken” and that meant she was hungry. If we asked her if she wanted something and she repeated our question that meant yes. Silence meant no. It was hard to know what she really wanted at times. Her list of foods was very short. We had stopped toddler formula and she drank soy milk constantly. Suddenly one day she began to refuse that as well. I had no idea how to make sure she was getting proper nutrition. I kept offering her different foods like her doctor and all those parenting books suggested. I couldn’t even get her to taste some things. If the food being offered did not look or smell right to her, she would run in the other direction. Once, she threw up when she saw me get her bowl from the cabinet. I was baffled.
We learned to adapt to her lack of speech. I was not aware of just how unusual our life was until we attended family gatherings. At her cousins’ birthday parties I was frequently reminded of how different she really was. At her own third birthday party, I can’t recall her saying a single word the whole day. Her next checkup was coming up and I was getting some answers from somebody. I knew I was not imagining this. By this time, I was pregnant with Jarod. Since he was due around the time Jaida’s three year checkup was scheduled we had to postpone it for a month. By the time we took the kids together for a checkup, I had even more questions than before.
To be continued,
Kim
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