“History is entirely created by the person who tells the story.” ― Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton

So, a little history on BD (Basement Dweller). This is him, as a Lego minifig. Did you know you could do that? It'll cost you, but for a price, you can custom create a mini fig. Of course, I couldn't begin to tell you where that minifig IS anymore. He stood on a shelf for awhile. A short while. Such is the life of a "point seven." Lost, broken, and taken apart objects are the lifeblood of a person with ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder. While my husband and I have never been exceptional housekeepers, "growing up" with BD has made a tidy household nearly impossible.

Even before we were married (I was 35 and my husband was 41), I knew that I would have trouble becoming pregnant. A family history of incredibly early menopause (age 35-grandmother and 36-mother) pretty much sealed the deal. So, it was no surprise that we became a family via adoption. Although I'm sure every adoption is unique, and every adoption agency has its own protocols, I think it's fair to say that the adoption process is just plain weird.

Most people just have unprotected sex. We had to be interviewed, fill out mountains of paperwork, have our house inspected, create a booklet advertising ourselves as parents (!), and THEN we had to fill out "the form." This form asked us to do the impossible. Given upwards of 50 categories of everything from schizophrenia to breast implants (I kid you not), we had to select whether we would "definitely consider," "possibly consider," or "not consider" having these 50 conditions in the birthparents' history. There were also questions about gender and race. We knew that for every category we selected "possibly consider" and "not consider" our wait for a match would be longer. We also knew, as educators who had exhausting and stressful jobs, that we had to be realistic. At the end of the day, we would need to come home to this child after spending all day with children/teenagers ourselves, and we'd need to have the bandwidth to be the best possible parents this child deserved.

We met BD's birthparents on a Friday (we met at a restaurant for lunch-you want to talk about weird), and BD was born that Monday. Apgar scores were good. He was small and two weeks early, but he was amazing and he was ours. We were over the moon! We still are, despite the many craters we have fallen into, and the amount of moon dust BD has strewn around our house.

As a baby, he hit all the milestones. Then things got interesting. In a nutshell:

18 months-not talking, tons of ear infections, Speech/Language evaluation results in 6 months of therapy. Insertion of ear tubes makes a huge difference. He hasn't stopped talking since!

Age 3-noticing LOTS of sensory stuff, particularly around eating. Upon arriving home after picking him up from daycare, he would jump on our bed for about a half hour to decompress. Took him to a Child Development Specialist who told us it was a problem of parenting. We weren't holding him to a high enough standard. Whaaattttt????? He's THREE!

Age 5-Began Kindergarten. I met with the principal, teacher, and Occupational Therapist prior to the start of school to give them a heads up that an interesting guy was headed their way. At this point, I had been a second grade teacher for 18 years, so I had a sense about these things. My husband had worked in special education for even longer, so we were basically investing in red flags at this point. On the third day of school, BD left behind his lunch box, so I ran into the school to fetch it. In the hallway, I happened to meet up with his teacher, who said, "Oh, I'm so glad to run into you. BD has been having a hard time. He keeps running out of the classroom. I can always tell which students haven't been to preschool." Yup, he didn't go to preschool because we couldn't transport him. But lady, I can assure you that's not the problem here. That spring, he was diagnosed with ADHD and we began medication. The first, Adderall, had him hiding under tables, weeping, so we tried something else. Honestly, I can't tell you what was next. Over the past 14 years we have had to try different meds for effectiveness, but also because pharmaceutical companies tend to just decide to stop producing medications without informing medical professionals.

Over the years, BD has had a diagnosis of Developmentally Delayed, Mixed Syndrome, Asperger's Syndrome, ADHD, Learning Disability, and Autism Spectrum Disorder. It wasn't until second grade that we were finally able to get him on an IEP. We lived in a small rural town with a K-8 school. We loved the town and the people, and also recognized that the school had limited resources. The longer we got to know BD as our son, the more we realized he had a complicated educational road ahead. We were optimistic that getting him on an IEP would provide the understanding and support he would need as he navigated the public school setting. We ALL began third grade with high hopes.

As a 32 year veteran of public school teaching, it's hard for me to be critical of the work of teachers. It is an incredibly rewarding, important, exhausting, and impossible profession. I feel connected to and protective of my brothers and sisters in education. So when we came to the realization that BD was not getting what he needed in the town where we lived, it was heart wrenching. We loved our town. We loved the school. And we needed to get BD in an environment where he could get the resources and support he needed. In October of his third grade year, we began tuitioning him at the school where I taught. At the risk of being macabre, this was only possible due to the fact that in that same month, my husband's mother died, leaving us with the resources to make this happen. I think she would have approved. We also made the very wise decision to have him enter a second grade classroom instead of continuing on with third. Four months later, we moved into a small house in the town where my husband and I were employed.

This brings us to this season in our lives as a family, and also this blog. BD graduated from high school in June 2023. He is 19 and works thirty-two hours a week at a local hospital in Environmental Services (He's a custodian who specializes in Waste Management). Before you get too grossed out by that, he gets to use cool, big machines and pieces of equipment to shred medical documents, sterilize medical waste, and break down large pieces of cardboard. He also, on occasion, gets to use those really cool buffing machines on the floors, so you know, a dream come true. He has moved into our unfinished basement (hence the moniker BD-Basement Dweller), and we are all trying our best to function in this post high school transition. He is chronologically nineteen years old, but using the .7 calculation, provided to us by a school psychologist, he is 13. In case you haven't figured it out yet, there's a pretty significant tension here. Biologically a 19 year old adult male, and functionally, a 13 year old boy.

So, this is my space. To reflect on the past, to vent, to ponder, to connect, and possibly to entertain. Thanks for coming along for the ride.