Enter stage right… something big

Whenever people have asked me during the last couple of years how long we’ll be staying in Vanuatu, I’ve smiled.

“Oh,” I’ve said confidently, relishing the feeling of having a clear vision that extends beyond six months into the future, “we’ll be here until February 2020, at least. That’s when Mike’s contract ends with World Vision, but we’re considering staying on in Port Vila after that. There are so many things we love about Vanuatu, and it’s a great place to be a kid, and we bought our house, you know. It would take something pretty big to change that plan.”

Well. Enter stage right… something pretty big.

During the last six months (actually, during the last six years) Mike and I have been on a journey to try to figure out how our eldest child is put together.

From very early on, Dominic was… intense. He slept less than other kids, and had little interest in eating. When he got upset it was difficult to soothe him. He has always done glee, laughter, outrage, resistance, and everything in between with 100% commitment and awe-inspiring staying power, and becoming his mother has granted me the most uncomplicated love and complicated joy I’ve ever known.

Let’s start with the uncomplicated love.

Mother-love didn’t hit me like a tidal wave with the arrival of my first-born. Rather, it came in like a tide—a slow, steady, inexorable rising.

I’m frequently, still, surprised by the purity and power of this love.

The love I feel for the boys is the least complicated force in my life. Before stepping into motherhood—with all the practical self-sacrifice it demands—I don’t think I had ever really loved someone else more than myself. I love my husband, but he is my partner, not my charge. There are seasonal variations to this dynamic, of course, but the love I bear for Mike usually meets the love he holds for me on more or less an equal footing. Unlike with the boys, I don’t feel continuously responsible for guarding and guiding Mike’s very being. I think it’s that sense of responsibility—matched to their vulnerability—that has clarified and distilled my love for my children during these early years of being a parent.

So, then, why would I say that being Dominic’s mother is a complicated joy?

Because it’s been so hard, friends.  So. Very. Hard.

From very early on, Dominic has been a fascinating child—curious and determined, mischievous and very funny. But many aspects of parenting Dominic have been an immense struggle. Sleeping. Eating. Managing big feelings and the epic, extended, meltdowns they have frequently sparked. Complying with the simplest request. Doing anything he doesn’t really feel like doing.

Anything, folks. We are talking about a child who steadfastly refused to acknowledge he had a last name until he was five years old.

Mike and I have struggled for years to understand how to channel and soothe the fierce spirit of our eldest child (and get him to acknowledge the existence and validity of the word “no”) without breaking that spirit. In the process, Mike and I have come perilously close to breaking ourselves.

Parenting may have gifted me my most intense, pure, experience of love. It has also ushered in my most intense, pure, experiences of frustration and anger, and feelings of failure, incompetence, and helplessness.

Dominic went into first grade here in Port Vila in January of this year. By May, it was apparent that he was not learning to read or write nearly as quickly as we might have expected given he is so clearly clever in other ways. In July, I took him back to Australia to see an educational specialist. I’d been watching Dominic consistently reverse letters and spot palindromes for more than a year, and I suspected dyslexia.

The first thing the specialist said when she sat down with me after spending several hours with Dominic was, “Well, he’s certainly complicated, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” I said. “He is, that.”

She diagnosed dyslexia, dysgraphia, and said that there seemed to be sensory processing issues that were likely preventing him from being able to focus and learn in class.

In September, I returned to Australia with the boys for a whole slew of additional appointments. We saw an educational psychologist, a pediatrician, and an occupational therapist. We had Dominic’s vision checked, and his hearing.

By the time we’d run this professional gamut we had several other diagnoses in hand…  ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), Sensory Processing Disorder, and visual tracking delays.

So what does this all mean?

Well, for Dominic it means that his brain is structured and wired differently than most people’s brain. He has differences in brain activity and development that impact his ability to sit still, pay attention, and control his impulses (ADHD).

Dominic’s pattern of brain organization and information processing also lends itself to certain unusual challenges and abilities. On the “challenges” front, it means difficulties with reading, spelling, rote math, working memory, and procedural learning (dyslexia).

Dominic also reacts to ordinary sensory experiences (things we see, do, and feel) in unusual ways.

The sensory input he gets from moving around and deep pressure (climbing, swinging, bumping into things, being hugged, or carrying something heavy) helps him calm down and focus. At the same time, he’s so sensitive to input that his system gets easily overloaded by environmental stimulation and triggers the “threat center” of his brain to set off the “fight or flight” response. And because of developmental delays that go hand-in-hand with ADHD, at this stage Dominic lacks critical skills and abilities to calm down effectively once he gets frustrated, overloaded, and “flooded.”

So what does this mean for Mike and me?

Well, one thing it all means is that a lot of our struggles to parent and soothe Dominic through the years make more sense. We’ve learned the hard way that a lot of the traditional parenting strategies we were raised with simply don’t work with Dominic most of the time. Now, we have a better understanding of why that often is.

It’s also meant that Mike and I have had a hard choice to make in recent months.

It’s obvious that Dominic could benefit from extra help in all sorts of areas right now—reading and writing, sure. But also, critically, emotional regulation and impulse control skills. And there is no educational psychologist or pediatric occupational therapist here in Port Vila that can really help us in this second area.

So we’ve made the very difficult decision to move somewhere where we can find that sort of help and support during the next few years.

As a result, I’ll be moving to Australia (and moving in with my parents) with the boys in January. Mike will follow us at some point next year, after overseeing a good transition here with the World Vision team. We’ll be based in Australia for at least the next couple of years—during this critical time of learning, foundation-laying, and development for Dominic.

After nine years of living in Laos and then Vanuatu, being based back in Australia will be a brand new adventure for us. It’s not at all the adventure we wanted to have next year, true. But we know that we are fortunate indeed to have the option of making this decision, and endlessly grateful for the help we are receiving from family and professionals as we field this latest curveball we’ve been tossed.

Thank you for being interested in our ongoing journey.

xo
Lisa