Prayer Request for Our Family

Sofia Michelle on her 4th Birthday last year

My Sofia.  What can I say; she is just the sweetest girl in the world.  From the time she wakes up to the time she goes to bed she is on “full speed ahead” mode.  She is our first born and has been such a delightful blessing to Malachi and me.  

We will celebrate Sofia’s 5^th birthday next month, and we are just so amazed at how quickly time goes by when we’re not paying attention.  It still feels like yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital.  Sadly though, from the very beginning Sofia and I had a rough start of it.  I suffered from postpartum depression shortly after her arrival and I didn’t begin to feel “normal” until she was about a year old.  Within Sofia’s first year she ended up with an angioma (we called it her “angel’s kiss) on her nose that eventually required surgery to remove.  That surgery took place shortly after her first birthday and was one of the hardest things Malachi and I had to deal with as parents. But she has an amazing plastic surgeon who did an amazing job on her nose and now you can’t tell anything was ever there.  

Over the past 3 years or so, things just haven’t been “right”.  I’m not sure how to properly explain that in written word, but I will give it a try.  Right around the time Sofia turned three (maybe sometime before that) she started having horrible problems with sleeping, more specifically going to sleep.  We tried the “cry it out” method, to NO avail, and it only left Malachi and me feeling like failures.  We tried letting her sleep in our room; which neither of us minded, but then we got much “advice” on how she needed to be in her own bed…blah blah…so we made that transition which was painful for us all.  The only way she would lay down for a nap was if I slept with her, which wasn’t necessarily bad because I too needed to rest.  So it benefited us both.  However, if there was a day I couldn’t lay down with her, she would have a full on meltdown.  (This is happening even to this day and she is going to be 5 next month)

The other things that I noticed seemed odd, but just figured that was just Sofia’s personality shining through, are that she doesn’t know when she is being picked on or if a child is being mean to her.  Malachi and I were sitting here the other night and he made the observation that if a child were to push Sofia down, Sofia would laugh not knowing she had just been bullied.  The person who pushed her down would be her “best friend”.  She is a bit socially awkward and doesn’t seem to understand personal space.  She gets stuck on a topic (whatever her little mind is fixated on) and can’t seem to focus on anything else.  She repeats herself as though she doesn’t recognize that she has already said something.  She has emotional meltdowns because of very insignificant things.  She equates an “angry face” with “you don’t love me”, but a “happy face” means “you love me”.  She doesn’t seem to feel pain, or at least be fazed by pain when she receives a spanking.  In fact, sometimes she laughs thinking we’re playing a game with her, and will even request who she’d like to spank her.  Very odd.

Over the past three years I would ask Malachi “is something wrong with her?” and his response was always “no, she’s just being Sofia”.  Over the past few months though, we are both coming to realize something is definitely not right.  The worst days were a few days ago around naptime.  Sofia had complete meltdowns and couldn’t stop repeating certain things, and even yelled at Malachi “daddy, you are not protecting me!” This pretty much sent my husband to his knees crying.  We have both cried and yelled and gotten very frustrated and angry with Sofia and ourselves for not knowing what to do.  

We are no longer in denial that something is not right with our sweet Sofia.  Our suspicion is that she has a high functioning form of Asperger’s Syndrome.  She fits just about all the criteria, and the behaviors have been going on since she was about 3 years old; even though we brushed it off as simply her personality.  

A year ago she had a horrible reaction to red dye in foods and that forced us to think differently about what we eat, which in turn led us to switch to an all organic/all natural diet.  Recently we stopped all dairy and limited sugar in take, mostly because I was noticing it was bothering Ellie’s tummy after nursing.  Our philosophy is if one has to change diet then we all have to.  When Ellie’s fussiness wasn’t really getting better it was suggested to cut out gluten, and so we did.  We are on day 4 without gluten and Ellie is no longer fussy after nursing, and it has greatly improved Sofia’s behavior.  Coincidently gluten is one of the things highly recommended to be cut out of a child’s diet that has autism.  

Given my husband’s knowledge and work in the field of psychiatry and psychology and my own personal experience with the field, we will not be having Sofia evaluated.  I don’t need a head doctor to tell me something is wrong, Malachi and I just know it.  I am thankful that my husband has knowledge and experience in this field and knows how to handle this.  

What we need more now than ever are prayers for Sofia and for us as we go down this journey of having a child who more than likely has Asperger’s.  We are fortunate to have close friends who have children with autism and they have been a great support lately.  Sofia is still a delightful child and if you were to be exposed to her for just a couple of hours, you may not even know anything is wrong.  However, we are with her everyday all day and we just “know”.  We are not going to make any more excuses and our heads are out of the sand.  

We will be seeking to learn ways to help Sofia learn appropriate social behaviors, while still shepherding her heart to the Lord.  This means a lot of hard work and a whole bunch of patience on our part as we cannot teach her or discipline her like other children can be.  Please keep our family in prayer, and know that we are not sad or worried about this situation.  We are so thankful and blessed the Lord chose Malachi and I to be Sofia’s parents.  We are confident that He did so not only to help Sofia but to teach Malachi and me more about self-sacrifice.  

Soli Deo Gloria!

Serving God and My Family,

Crystal <>< (SAHM)