Hayden and Jaris

Wow Hayden is almost 5 weeks old now!  Where has time gone?  We are settling into life as a family of 5 and I am enjoying life as it is.  Jeral is such an amazing father, I love appreciated how he has stepped up to the plate and taken on watching and playing with Kenzie and Jaris more, so I can focus on Hayden.  The big thing for Hayden and I is getting the whole breast feeding routine down.  Since I did not nurse Kenzie and Jaris this is new territory for me. I will post pictures of the kids at a later date!

This week we met with a speech therapist to assess Jaris, and we also had his hearing tested.  The hearing test came back great!  Jaris hears very well and his tiny ear canals have grown as he has and are a normal size.  So we can scratch hearing issues off the list of possible reasons why Jaris does not like to talk, why he disengages, why he hyper focuses, and why he does not handle groups of people well etc.  The next step in this journey is to go back to our GP and get her to refer us back to the pediatrician who will refer us where ever we need to go.  We will continue with speech therapy once we get in.  Right now we are on the wait list, our appointment last week was an assessment to see if we needed speech therapy or not!  And we do!!!!!

When we got all the genetic testing back just over 2 years ago saying that genetically there was nothing wrong with Jaris we breathed a huge sigh of relief, and honestly at the time I thought okay Jaris is fine life will proceed as normal, and for a while everything appeared to the "normal".  Jaris was progressing and for a while he even had more audible words than Kenzie, and then it all stopped and his quirks started to be more pronounced.  Our experience with others in regards to Jaris and his quirks has been two extremes.  From a few we have been nudged to look into Autism Spectrum Disorders, or Pervasive Degenerative Disorders.  Then from a few others we were strongly told not to have him labelled.

I have cried many tears as we have started to think about the future and what it all holds for Jaris.  I have cried wondering how will I breathe and manage the stresses that come along with having a husband who has a disability in regards to his brain processing what he hears, and then having a son who will need lots of extra help.  I have cried because no matter what, Jaris is one of our three miracles and not knowing at times is just as challenge as knowing the answers.  At least with knowing we can come up with a plan, not knowing means a bunch of trial and error that may or may not be what Jaris needs!  Yet with all the tears, and unknowns right now at the end of the day when he smiles with the dimple in his right cheek, and I look into his blue eyes I know God will hold us through the unknowns and months ahead of us as we walk down the path of figuring this out for Jaris and for us.  Ultimately though what matters is we love our Jair-Bear.

No parent desires for their child to struggle in life and yet that is something that we will not be able to prevent and protect them from.  Being human means facing struggles and journeying through them.  Being a parent means helping your children as they journey through their struggle and yet not necessarily sparing them from having to journey through the tough stuff, and that is the hardest part.