On June 13, 2006, I woke up feeling very sick to my stomach and exhausted. We'd been trying to start a family for a few months and I was hoping this was a sign that this family had begun! I had a master's class that morning and, though I didn't want to attend, I dragged myself in anyway. I was feeling better later and I was hoping that was also a good sign. That afternoon, I decided to start recording my ideas in a journal for the baby I was hoping to have someday soon.
It turns out I wasn't pregnant on June 13, 2006. However, it wasn't too long before I learned I was pregnant. And, on June 13, 2007, one year to the date of when I started that journal, Imma-Jane Isabella was born. Imma came into this world with many serendipitous occurrences and those types of things still tend to surround her.
We were thrilled with our tiny bundle of joy. I've always said Imma was Imma before she was even born. She is her own person--unique, self-motivated, different, fearless. She has proven time and again that, if you have enough tenacity, nothing is going to keep you down. She has over-come great obstacles to get where she is today and she does it all in a way that prevents most people from even realizing she is "different."
Imma was 18 months old before we started to realize something wasn't quite right. She wasn't talking like she should be, she wasn't focusing well, she was too courageous, she didn't seem to notice other people the way she "should." Through several evaluations and lots of therapy, we ended up in a Pre-school Program for Children with Disabilities and a sentence to kindergarten by their rules--a structured teach classroom, an autism unit. No official label, just "autistic tendencies" and a school staff convinced my child could not survive in a general education classroom.
Despite the recommendation of these "experts," we did not place Imma in an autism unit. Instead, we moved her to a school that puts much faith in the believe that children must be given a chance to fail or succeed before they are labeled or defined. And Imma has flourished this year! Not a week has gone by that someone--a teacher, an administrator, a friend, a family-member, doesn't tell me how proud they are of what she has accomplished. Despite her inability to completely process spoken language, Imma is being successful in a general education kindergarten class with minimal support. We still have our struggles and there are times when I wonder if she will ever be the same as everyone else, but she has by far surpassed my expectations, those of her current teachers, and certainly the minimal expectations those "experts" set for her at her previous campus. If there is one thing you should know about Imma, it's that she is never going to give up. She'll keep working and fighting until she gets it. I could not be more proud of my little girl than I am today.
What does the future hold for us? A lot more struggles, a lot more trials and tribulations, and a lot more successes. There will be more difficult curriculum, more skills she will need to acquire, more hills to climb. But each one of these is truly an opportunity for her to show her tenacity and to overcome. I know nothing is going to crush her spirit and nothing is going to keep her down. If each of us had just a bit of the will-power that child has, imagine what we could accomplish.
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| Imma at 2 1/2 |
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| Imma at 5 |
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