Break My Heart

This post is going to be all over the place, and probably pretty long, so I am apologizing at the beginning.

Let me start with a little background.

Parker has shown signs from the beginning that he may have speech problems. He could pronounce all the individual words, could say his ABC's by the time he was 2, could count to 10 by age 2, but had a very hard time with full sentences. I knew that it wasn't a problem with comprehension, so at first I thought it was just because he was a boy, and I had always heard they were slower than girls.

Our pediatrician didn't seem to think there was a problem. He knew that Parker's vocabulary and comprehension levels were great, so he said the same thing that I had been thinking; eventually the full sentences would start coming.

Finally by the time he was 2 1/2-3 years old, he finally started speaking in full sentences, but that's also when the stuttering started. At first, it was quite often, but only at the beginning of the sentence, and only on certain words. I was really worried about it, but everything that I read, and everyone I talked to, said that it was completely normal at his age.

Then, all of a sudden, it stopped; for a good 2 months or so! I was so relieved, thinking that he had grown out of it. Well, he hadn't. It started up again and was way worse than it was the time before. It was at the beginning of almost every sentence and seemed to be worse when he felt like he didn't have your full attention. I would work with him and tell him to slow down and think about what he wanted to say.

For the past several months, through now, it has been pretty bad. It makes me so sad!! When we went to his 4 year appointment a couple of weeks ago, our pediatrician still didn't seem to be worried about it. Of course, he didn't do it nearly the whole time we were there, so Dr. Lin didn't get to see how it was 90% of the time.

He said that he thought it was just that Parker had so much to say, and couldn't process it fast enough, so it made him stutter. I had been thinking the same thing, so it kind of made sense to me. Dr. Lin said that if it was still happening by the time he turned 5, then we would look into a speech therapist. That seemed like a long wait to me, but I wanted to trust the doctor. I was worried that it would still be happening when he started school and the other kids might give him a hard time.

Well, Nona has been out of town for the last 2 weeks for a contract job, so she came over yesterday to see the kids and spend the night. She wanted to do something fun with the kids today, so they went to see a movie. On the way there, Parker was trying to tell her something, and started stuttering. She said he got really mad, made a frustrated noise, and said, "my voice makes me SO mad!!"

When she told me that, my heart literally broke in two! I could tell that it frustrated him at times, but he had never said anything to me about it. He never acted sad or mad about it either. To know that something he deals with on a daily basis is making him so upset, just kills me!! Now I am feeling SO much guilt for not doing something about it before now.

As soon as we got the kids down for their naps, I got on the computer and started looking up doctors. I found a group of women that are all Speech Therapists and Speech Pathologists, and they happen to be within 15 minutes from my house. They are going to talk to our insurance company and find out what it will cost us, and call me back tomorrow to make an appointment.

I know Dr. Lin said that I should wait until he is 5, but I can't!! Now that I know that it is seriously bothering him, I have to do something NOW! I feel like if I just sit around and wait, and it is still happening a year from now, that not only will he be behind in his speech, but he could also have some mental issues to deal with.

I am just feeling so down about this right now and feel like I should have been more proactive. Have any of you ever had to deal with this? If so, please let me know how soon you started with therapy, and how quickly it started to make a difference.

Thanks for listening to me. I haven't ever talked about his stuttering before, because deep down I really wanted it to be something that he just grew out of, but I am really starting to realize that that's probably not going to be the case. Please pray for my little boy! Not necessarily that he won't stutter anymore, but just that he can have a peace with it. He shouldn't have to be disturbed by something at such a young, innocent age!

Bless my Peanut's heart! I love that little boy SO much!