My baby turns five this week. 💛 This is not the birthday post—this is the pre-birthday post. Because these milestones, they involve a lot. We are going to celebrate her so hard. Her miracle life, all her favorite things, the absolute joy that she brings us every single day. It is going to be a celebration of love; I’ve been preparing for weeks.
Meanwhile we’re also attending to the other birthday things… The annual IEP, the doctor check ups and labs. This year there are some special evaluations and a potential heavy new diagnosis on the table as we prepare for her to enter kindergarten. My girl is a brilliant ray of light and joy. She is also largely nonverbal and in need of more support. I celebrate her at the same time I in equal measure worry about her… the scales rocking back and forth on their wild ride throughout our days.
As I sat with her on my lap recently, I felt the daunting shadow of uncertainty cross our future once again. What will another diagnosis mean? How will it change things? How will we carry it?
I don’t know the answer to those questions—I never do. What occurred to me in that moment was that those answers, those questions even, don’t matter. She will still be Lydia. And she is perfect.