Author Archives: CC

In mid-July we got the diagnoses that our oldest child was autistic and considered at a level 2. First of all what the hell does all that really mean? Let me go back a few months to when we started noticing something was different about our beautiful baby boy.

My son was born 6 weeks premature but we where lucky and he didn’t have to stay more then a week to get his levels to what they needed to be and up to 16/17 months old he had been hitting all his milestones normal and some he seemed to be overachieving on. Then it was like the lights where switch off, he was still our sweet boy and would cuddle with us… but began to lose his words. He no longer called out for me, his father, his grandfather or aunt. He no longer seemed to respond to his name or nicknames like he had been. Maintaining eye contact seemed to make him scared and he would turn away and he still had yet to walk without holding onto things.

We had just brought home our daughter and I chalked it up to having to adjust to not being the only child anymore and having to share mommy and daddy’s attention. But in my heart I knew something wasn’t right. I noticed he would wiggle his fingers and flap his hands when he was excited, spin in circles, rock back and forth, shack his head and hit himself even.

Finally after many back and forth conversations with my husband I spoke with our pediatrician and asked to have him looked at, she suggested he get seen by a developmental specialist. A month later we had our answer he was autistic… being our first child it broke my heart at first. Did I somehow cause this? Was I to blame for him being this way? But then I told myself he is still my beautiful baby boy it’s just he does things a little differently. Sure there are days I could do without the consent shrieking and biting; and I would honestly give anything to be able to understand when he needs something since he is still nonverbal and has a hard time communicating what he wants. Eating is hard as well with him being on the spectrum he is really picky even by toddler standers and there are days he just refuses to eat.

I have major anxiety and depression and days like today get to me. I love my family with all my heart but, sometimes I’m barely holding it together. So, when my husband came in from working on the car and I had been with the kids nonstop (my son squealing at the top of his lungs for an hour and my daughter crying cause she needed a nap and he was keeping her up) and he said I’m tired I want to take a nap. I didn’t say what I wanted to when he asked if that was ok. I said, “I’m fine…”

PCOS Awareness Month and my Pregnancy Journey

So September is PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) Awareness month. For those who are unfamiliar with what this is it is a hormonal disorder that causes ovaries to become enlarged and cysts to form on outer edges. It also is common cause for infertility in women. There is currently no cure and it is not really known what causes this to appear in some women and not others.

I like most women also went undiagnosed for many years. I started having symptoms in my late teens but didn’t discover I had it until my husband and I had been trying to conceive for 2 years. Most women experience abnormal or completely missed menstrual cycles, uncontrolled weight gain, and high testosterone levels that lead to unwanted hair growth on chest, neck and face.

I struggled with all of these things since the age of 17, and unfortunately my OBGYNs missed the signs as well. My husband and I started fertility treatments in late 2016 which let me tell you isn’t cheap. But, when you desperately want a child and you see the negative test over and over again it can tear apart your heart and soul and make you question yourself as a women. In mid 2017 we had to stop treatments because of my PCOS, I had a cyst the size of a plumb twist my right ovary and another one the size of a large cherry rupture and fill my abdomen with blood. I went to the ER from work in horrible pain and immediately after having a scan of my abdomen was rushed to surgery.

To tell you that was one of the scariest moments of my life is an understatement. I was told by the doctor I could possibly lose my ovary and or have to have a hysterectomy and when you want children as bad as we did that wasn’t what you wanted to hear before you had to be knocked out for surgery. Luckily I woke up and everything went well they didn’t have to remove anything and I recovered. My husband and I decided for both our mental health to take a step back and wait before trying again with treatment.

Later that year my mother in law had a major stroke that paralyzed her left side of her body. Her husband tried his best to take care of her but he was also up in age so unfortunately like most that suffer from a stroke she had a fall and suffered a hematoma in her brain with caused her to have to have surgery. During this time she kept telling me I was pregnant and I kept telling her I’m sorry I wasn’t. Which broke mine and my husband’s heart because we both knew she probably wasn’t going to be here much longer. Well come to find out she was right!

After all the hardships of trying to start a family I discovered at the age of 33 and by accident that I was in fact finally pregnant. The pregnancy was a blessing but also very sad because we feared every day she would pass before meeting her last grandchild (my husband was 41 and the youngest of 3 children and didn’t have any children). My son was due November of 2019, but came 6 weeks early, my mother in law was already on hospice by then and passed away 3 weeks after he was born she got to see him for 5 days and was lucid for 2 days, long enough to tell me I would have a girl and another boy like her before she passed away a few days before my 34th birthday.

I believe she is my children’s guardian angel, and yes I said children, when my son was 10 months old we found out I was pregnant with his sister who has my mother in laws first name as her middle name. Hopefully her predictions comes true once more in the future, but I want to encourage those struggling or who might be experiencing these symptoms to look into getting help and to not give up.

Hi everyone, so I’m not up to date on blogs and honestly I think the last time I even read one was back when I was in high school. But, I have always found writing to be a great way for me to relieve my stress and anxiety and journaling just isn’t doing enough anymore. I’m 35 years old and happily married (for the past 10 years) with two beautiful children. A boy who is almost 2 and a girl who is 6 months old, I also have been a caregiver for my mother in law who had a stroke in 2017 (since passed in 2019) and my father in law for the past two year since his stroke in 2018.

The past few years have been filled a lot of ups and downs. My husband and I had problems with infertility for 5 years before we were blessed with our beautiful baby boy, who was born right before his mother’s passing. Then we unexpectedly got pregnant again as my father in law was put on hospice and my son was diagnosed with autism. Needless to says it’s caused a lot of stress and anxiety to come up. But, I think being a women and a mom we tend to try to keep it together by putting on a brave face and saying, “I’m fine.”

As I was thinking about this I had a strong desire to write about how it was ok to say I’m NOT fine.