Apraxia and infant bonding

This topic is a touchy one for me. I think it is because it ties in to my opinion of myself as a mother. I was always good with kids. Good with babies. I had lots of younger cousins and entertained them at family gatherings well before I was old enough to babysit. Once in high school and through the first two years of college I did a ton of babysitting. Then I chose to work with children as my profession.

I just assumed I’d be a wonderful mother. Before Michael was born I imagined bonding with him as an infant. I imagined he’s be comforted by my arms, voice, and face. I imagined playing peek-a-boo, singing songs, exchanging smiles and baby-talk. What I got was a baby who cried almost nonstop for 8 months. He didn’t seem to be comforted any more by me than by anyone else. He didn’t smile on schedule. He didn’t laugh on schedule. He preferred looking past me at the lights behind me rather than looking into my eyes. We never played peek-a-boo. He didn’t babble. I thought people were exaggerating when they talked about bonding with their infants. I thought they were reading things into their children’s behavior that weren’t there. I just didn’t realize exactly how different Michael’s early development was.

Ava followed only 15 and a half months later. She was a little more typical. She didn’t have the fascination with lights and the eye contact avoidance. She didn’t cry as much. She did seem to prefer her parents somewhat to others. In comparison, she seemed like such an easier baby. In retrospect, she still didn’t smile, laugh, coo, or babble on schedule. We still didn’t have that give and take, that positive feedback loop that leads to the early bonding so many people have with their infants.

My husband and I just thought we weren’t baby people. We didn’t realize that we were having a perfectly normal reaction to the fact that our children weren’t as socially interactive as a typical infant. It’s hard to bond with a baby that doesn’t smile at you. It’s hard to bond with a baby that doesn’t play the typical back and forth infant games like peek-a-boo and other finger plays. Without that interaction, bonding is just more difficult and will happen slower.

When I was watching home videos I came across one of Ava when she had just started to smile. She was almost 4 months old. It was difficult to get her to smile, and when I did it was in response to tickling (a physical stimulus), not in response to a social overture. She almost seemed to be struggling. I can remember that Michael’s first laugh was in response to being thrown up in the air and caught again – also in response to a physical stimulus. And he was much older.

Looking back on it now, I think much of this could be related to the apraxia. The late smiles and laughs and the lack of babbling are all early red flags for apraxia. I never really reflected on the impact that has on the parent’s relationship with their baby – and their confidence in themselves as a parent.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? It would make for an amazing research study.

Doubt

Ava has been making progress quickly. It’s a blessing I am truly grateful for. However, an interesting side effect is that people (family, friends) are beginning to ask me if I perhaps over-reacted. Perhaps Ava is just a late talker after all. Perhaps she’ll catch up just like Michael did. Ava's swift progress combined with questions from others and the reluctance from other professionals to officially diagnose began to make me doubt myself.

So I went to our home videos. I wanted to compare Ava’s speech now (about two months after she first started making progress) to Michael’s speech at that same point – two months after he first started making progress. That would be when he was about 18-19 months old. It was interesting. Most of the time his speech sounded very much like Ava’s speech right now. He didn’t have any final consonants either. He was using mostly one word utterances. But, and this is a big but, when he did combine words he easily put two to three words together. Neither word sounded exactly like the adult version of the word, but they were combined easily and you could tell them apart. You could tell that he was saying two different words and combining them with no difficulty. That is a huge contrast with Ava. She has to work to try to combine words. When she tries they usually all come out the same. This is not typical.

Michael did not develop on a typical timeline, and his early history was atypical, but once things finally got started they followed a typical developmental pattern. That is a late talker. That is a delay, not a disorder. Ava is different. She needed therapy (and possibly fish oil supplementation) to get started. And now that things are started, the development does not look typical. This is disorder, not a delay. I don’t know yet what the future holds for her. The great progress so far gives me hope that her disorder (suspected CAS) is on the milder end of the spectrum. I am sure, however, that this is a disorder and not a delay. I am not over-reacting. I will continue to do everything in my power to help her. Both my professional and my mama instincts tell me that. And my research confirms it.

Our house = Plague ground zero

So, as I discussed, Michael had some kind of stomach bug last week. It hit him last Friday night to be exact. I didn’t mention it at the time, but my husband and I came down with it Sunday night. We thought Ava had escaped because she was at her my parents’ house Friday night. They even kept her Saturday night too to try to protect her. I didn’t know I was sick yet on Sunday so we had therapy with Ms. J that morning and our playdate. I found out later that Sara got sick this past week. Then Ava got sick anyway Monday night. So far, this bug had proven to be extremely contagious. But at that point we thought we were clear. No one had been sick since Monday night.

Thursday my mom had the day off so she spent the morning with us. The other set of grandparents were coming in to town this past weekend to celebrate Ava’s birthday with us. The party was planned for Saturday morning. Ava spent Saturday night at my parents’ house again so we could decorate. Saturday morning early my parents called asking us to come get her. My mom had the bug. My parents were going to have to miss the party. Mom had to have picked it up at our house Thursday morning even though no one was sick any longer.

So if you’re counting we now have infected all four of us, a playdate friend, and my mother. Victims = 6. We did warn my husband’s parents. But they had driven 8 hours to spend some time with us so they came. It was wonderful. We had a delightful party. The children and the grandparents played beautifully together. We spent all day Saturday and Sunday together. We had plans to go to a children’s museum together Monday. Nope. Both of my husband’s parents got sick last night. My dad got sick too. Now we’re up to 9 victims. Seriously, this thing has a 100% infection rate.

Everyone else had a terrible 5-8 hours and then several days of low appetite/energy. My mom, on the other hand, is now in the hospital. In an isolation room. She’s not getting better. Three days in her symptoms are still severe. I feel terrible. I’m worried.

So, due to a bug that passed through our household last weekend and we thought had passed, we managed to put my mother in the hospital and infect three other grandparents as well. Two of those grandparents drove 8 hours for the privilege. Not our most successful weekend ever.