How can a person feel so helpless and hopeful in the same breath of air? I ask because that’s me!

Maddox had his quarterly CF appointment recently. Dr Pete stated that Maddox is a healthy little dude. His lungs sound good but he’s still a little one compared to all his peers. He kept shaking his head that he didn’t get it other than the Constitutional growth delay. He commented (not in ill will), ‘he looks ok here at clinic and then when I saw him out in public, he’s so little’. I responded, ‘0I know he is’.

Why, as a mom, do I feel so helpless!?

It’s the weirdest feeling and one that I have been trying to work through since this recent diagnosis. I feel that there should be something else I can do to help him to keep up. What did I miss? Is there a question I haven’t asked yet? Did I do something wrong during pregnancy? Are we need feeding him enough? Is that what is causing this? My brain exhausts me sometimes (ok, all the time).

But who does he need to keep up to (my internal monologue)? He’s his own person and his has a personality big enough to compensate for his ‘slow’ growth. Everyone will know Maddox for he is and not how tall he is.

Hopefully, these years of him ‘being behind’ will mean nothing and when it counts (whenever that is) that he will hit all the milestones he needs to hit; being happy, being healthy, surrounded by family and friends that love him for who he is.

How as a parent do you work through this internal teeter totter of emotions? Should it really matter? Why do I care so much? I know there are parents around me that tip toe the conversation (ok that’s just me that hears their thoughts they probably don’t have) Wow, he’s such a little guy. How should I person respond? Thanks? What a weird response.

I could say ‘yes he is’, but I always say it in my head as defeated.

Just a mixed bag of emotions that I need to learn go and accept that, it is what it is. It’s so cliche and I don’t mix with that response very well.

So, I’ll keep an ear out to see if there is something else I can do, but I am working through to not let it bother me. Besides, he’s 7 going on a 14 year old teenager and loves to push his mom’s buttons. My emotional bucket is starting to fill up with those situations….. I still love the kid!