Living in a small town is amazing for a number of reasons: community, slower pace of life, the beach. What small towns aren’t necessarily known for? Specialty resources. We have learned so much over the last few years about how to navigate special needs resources in our small beach town.
When we moved to this slice of heaven on the emerald coast, we didn’t anticipate needing specialty services. But isn’t that how life works? You don’t know what you need to know until you actually need to know it. We did all the normal research: pediatricians, baby safety, milestones, etc. We learned about nutrition and sleep and what baby gear we actually needed. All the stuff that new parents research and think about. We set up playdates, had regular fun outings to the beach, had all of our regular well child check ups. We felt like we were in such a good groove as a family.
Then our son started missing some milestones.
We started asking some friends of ours that had kids around the same age. We (really it was mostly me) Googled…probably a bit too much. We asked our pediatrician questions. And it finally came time to where we wanted to get him evaluated.
There was such a long wait time for an appointment and the anxiety that I felt kept building.
We are years past that season of our life now and we have learned so much along the way. We have resources, tools, and most of all a community that supports our family so well. Now I am often the mom that people come to when they start seeing little red flags of missed milestones or have questions to ask. And I genuinely know that I walked this road for a reason.
When I heard about As You Are expanding into Florida, I was so excited. One of the hardest parts of our own story was that waiting period to get answers. My anxiety was off the charts and it felt like we were constantly holding our breaths waiting for what our life would look like. As You Are does virtual evaluations so that you don’t have to wait as long as I did. Their physicians work with you to get answers in weeks instead of months orf even years. That difference in time frame, alone, would have made a huge impact on my mental health during that waiting period.
One thing that I really want you to remember: You are not alone. I was so encouraged reading this quote from a fellow Autism Mom, “We’re not the first, the only or the last family with an autistic child. From the moment we got our diagnosis, it felt like we were the only ones who had ever heard those words. We quickly learned how wrong we were and how reassuring it was to be able to find others who have already been down this path or who are learning just like we are. It is a challenge as our lives continue and hurdles present themselves to keep that feeling of loneliness creeping in. Sometimes, just saying the words out loud that we are not the only ones raising an autistic child in this world can help us tremendously.”
You are the perfect mom for your child. The future you envisioned may be different but it won’t be any less beautiful. This is a hard and holy road that we walk as moms to children with special needs, and we are better together.
If you have questions about your child’s development? The team at As You Are provides useful autism screening and diagnostic evaluations for kids 16 months to 10 years old via telehealth appointments. You can learn more at AsYouAre.com/MomCollective.
