Fine

Wiltshire Towers is in limbo.  Lid had her "special" CDC yesterday.  The one where I had hoped that the paedeatrician would laugh at me, tell me I am an over anxious mother and that of course she wasn't autistic, it was merely my imagination.  The knowledge deep within me that yes, she is autistic and always has been, had been stamped down.  We waited for the verdict.

The paedeatrician spent an hour questioning me about her "developmental milestones", whilst Lid endured two hours of tests to see how she was developing.  The staff congratulated her with every mistake she made, cheered her on regardless of her success.  I could see how many things she "couldn't" do, and my heart was sinking.

There was nothing left but for it to be provisionally confirmed. Lid is autistic.  The doctor was jolly and upbeat, congratulating me on how well she has learnt to do things.  Inside, I hated myself a little more.

It will now be a long uphill struggle to get that diagnosis made formally. It will be hard to get help for her.  It will be more fighting, more shouting, more crying.

The fact remains that there is nothing to do here but suck it up and crack on. 

I joke that at least this means I won't have any grandchildren, as everyone knows how I much I hate midgets, that I won't have to worry about their furture boyfriends or girlfriends.  We will chuckle as to how we won't have to fork out money to buy presents for them to go to birthday parties, when the fact remains that they are actually asked to very few. 

We will ignore that it hurts to see them isolated and unable to interact with others.  We will pretend that I don't cry when I think about how lonely they are, how lonely I know The Boy is because he has told me.  We don't kick the professionals who tell us that actually, the kids don't realise that they're different, so it doesn't "bother" them.

We will accept that they won't have the "normal" childhood experiences of their peers, and we will pretend that it doesn't matter, that it is fine.  We will pretend that not being able to have a "normal" child is not cutting at my heart like the sharpest knife, that it doesn't make me fucking angry that I am such a shit parent that I have failed them in being able to supply them with the simplest task of decent DNA.

We will pretend that everything is peachy, everything is well, and I will not be awake at horrible hours worrying for them, for both now and the future.  We will pretend that, when they are asleep, I don't hold them and cry in to their hair at what I perceive to be the unfairness that it is they and not other children who are autistic.

We will be quiet and we will be still.  When you ask me if I am ok, I will say that I am fine.  When you are not looking, I will stare off to the middle distance, and try to think about nothing.  I will take pride in achievements that they get that you think are not important, because for them it was harder and took longer. I will love them, and I will be proud of them. I will continue because that is how it has to be, and I will be the one that has to explain again and again that no, it won't get better, no, they cannot help it, no, I do not need your input.

I will cry, I will scream, not for the diagnosis, not for me, but for the loss of the dreams.

It is not the diagnosis that causes the pain, it is the death of the dreams.  And it is they; the hopes and aspirations that I had for her, that I had for him, the ones that need to be amended, the ones that can now realistically never have though should they have them for themselves they will attain them; that the loss of can never, ever be fine.