And the panic attacks have started

I'm not by any means a veteran of this special needs lifestyle, but I have been through my share of stuff. Enough to be prepared for anything...so I thought. In January, I got a call from Eden's awesome Special Education teacher. We needed an IEP meeting asap. Not a big deal right? Yeah, as expected things went wonderful. We kept most everything the same with exception of one of Eden's OT sessions were being switched to a small group session instead of an individual one.

During that meeting, one of the therapists mentioned that Eden should be due for her Tri-annual testing. For those who don't know this means that Eden needed to be re-evaluated for pretty much everything. They have been spending the last month doing Educational, Speech, Occupational, Behavioral, and cognitive evaluations.

It seems a lot for a little six year old to go through, but at this point she's a professional test taker. And she always is at her best at school. We've been going through all the things we need to, filling out questionnaires  asking a ton of questions, and waiting.

Well, I'm getting closer to the day that we review the findings and talk about where she is. And here is where the anxiety comes in. Unlike when we started this process 3 years ago, I'm worried about completely different things. Last time there wasn't a question that she would get services, now the anxiety is how much has she progressed? Is it as much gain as we expected? Less? Will she still qualify for services in school?

I know some of these may not seem like a big issue. Thinking that not getting services because she's progressed is something to be proud of and it really is...BUT the reason she is doing so well is because she has had this support. Having a child that doesn't fit in the mold of a "special needs" kid, this will be forever the worry of her dad and I.

Another big anxiety trigger for me, Eden is in the process of being tested for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactiviy Distorder. This means a lot of things and then again it doesn't change much. Eden's doctor and I have been talking about this diagnosis since we started this whole process. We've waited to make sure we were getting to some of the underlying behaviors and also for her to be in a strictly educational environment  Also making sure these behaviors were not Autism or Anxiety related. We'll see how things work out. I may end up writing a post in the future on why we thought of even testing Eden for ADHD was appropriate but that's a story a long time coming.

The meeting should be at the end of the month and I'll let you know how it goes. In the mean time I'll be concentrating on the most important things in my life. You see them? Yup that's what I'm gonna do, keep hugging my babies!

Please come back on Monday as I am guest blogging for a long time friend at Simply Stavish, Talking all about our first set of evaluations and some little things I learned.