D-Day! Littleguts first post

Welcome to my blog, Littleguts! My name is Veronica, I am a mommy, a wife, and a lawyer.  I am the mommy of a very special boy, Nathaniel, who is 3.5 years old.  He is developmentally delayed and we are experiencing tremendous progress and healing.

–Littleguts is centered around 3 things:

1. Gut health
2. Developmental delay
3. Early intervention 

Why I started littleguts

 Like every other millennial, I followed many mindless fitness and fashion blogs, took my own selfies I shared, but there are not many blogs for parents of kids who are developmentally delayed and about healing developmental delay, maybe because it isn’t as glamorous as chic workout gear and new heels.  Gut health and developmental delay are what I am most passionate about, since it is what I breathe everyday with my son.  I didn’t know where to start, so I researched my little butt off, talked to people, experts, doctors, other parents and read A LOT! I found several things that helped us and some that did not.

I learned the ropes of advocating for my child and how to get services and fine the right kind of providers- it is not the type of therapy sometimes, but the THERAPIST that can make the difference. I Want to share our roadmap with as many parents as possible so no parent feels helpless and everyone regardlessof having health insurance can start healing their child right now. 

It doesn’t matter if you have health insurance, a masters degree a bachelors a high school diploma, I am going to give you our roadmap to healing.

Format

Each week I will have 2 posts.  One will be a gut health/early intervention post by me.  It may include recipes, activities, tips on therapies, supplements that we have tried and have seen amazing results with.  Another post will feature an expert that has been working with my child talking about the impact of their particular therapy on developmental delay and autism and how it affects the brain and tips on what you can do to work with your child in their particular area of expertise.

Healing IS possible, we are experiencing life changing healing that I never thought was possible when we first started.

“D-DAY”

Dday is the name of my first post because it symbolizes 2 things.  First Dday in history symbolizes a change in course or in operations.  Second in my world, in our world, it was Diagnosis day.  Dday was my change in course and a totally new way of doing things that I had to saddle up for.  It was also a scary day.

Although I knew something was off and I had gotten the early intervention ball rolling, I still walked in semi in denial thinking, surely these experts will tell me there is nothing wrong and he is developing at a different pace. Instead, I walked out with an expert opinion worse than what I had imagined. It was earth shattering.

Dday is the first time where you feel helpless as a parent, for the first time you can’t control this.  Little guts will give you tools to help you so you can be empowered and start healing your child. I don’t want any parent to feel isolated, afraid of what the future holds.  I want Dday to be just a change in course for us special needs parents.  Setting the GPS to healing.

If you have had your Dday, you will notice none of the medical professionals even mention the potential for healing or recovery.  You just get questionnaires, genetic tests (which in the end don’t really offer you any concrete answers, especially with autism), and a list of providers to contact for therapies.  

What you don’t get is emotional support, no hope, no beacon for healing. I am not a doctor (obviously check any supplements with your doctor, even though everything is natural, I don’t know about your child’s medical history or allergies), so I will not be telling you to do anything different than what your doctor wants.  As a lawyer, I learned research skills and critical thinking, and how to think outside of the box. Everything you will read and see here I spent hours researching, reading studies, talking to doctors, therapists, other parents, anecdotal evidence, late at night, since I have a day job and am a mom of 2 busy toddlers. 

To give you an idea of the type of progress I am talking about, Nate was nonverbal in January.  He was in the first percentile for speech, you can’t be in the 0 percentile.  He is now in the tenth percentile! He is on the map! He speaks to us in sentences and spontaneously.  At three, he had never called me mommy.  Those were the most magical words, I remember the first time he said I love you back.  I am so excited to share my healing and start you on your road to healing too!

Thank you for tuning in — If you’ve gut questions, I’ve gut answers!