He'll grow out of it

Like most newborns, he cried. A lot. He nursed. A lot. He pooped. A lot. I knew that the first 5 months were going to be sleepless and restless.

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The "dad" reached out two weeks after Ezra was born to check in and see how the pregnancy was going. I told him that Ezra had been born and was doing well, that he was allowed to come and see us at any time. He chose not to. He didn't come until Ezra was 5 weeks old and stopped by for 20 minutes. The following week was 30 minutes. I offered him any time that he wanted and he simply wasn't interested. He was able to get a couple of photo opportunities and that was all he wanted. A social media dad. The last time that he saw Ezra was around Mother's Day and he had asked me to (not so candidly) "go kill myself, but I was probably too stupid to do so, so he could do it for me". Followed up by a text about how he is planning on just taking "his son", followed up with an image of a credit card with a message "this is all I need to break into your house". He also consistently had sent me messages about how Ezra was conceived, which I was told was just for him to exert dominance and control over the situation

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I was super lucky that my job allowed Ezra to come with me to work. I had to take off 10 weeks instead of 6 weeks because of the C-section and the carbon monoxide poisoning and the chiropractor didn't want me back in the office until I was at 100%. I honestly don't know that I have ever been 100% in my entire life. But at 10 weeks post partum, Ezra and I got dolled up to go to the office. He did so good. He was such a gem and it was so nice to be out of the house. We were still recovering but it was lovely.

Ezra stayed with me until he was 8 months old, then we transitioned to him being in the office for half days and then I came home and saw him on lunch. It was a hard transition, but necessary. While he was at the office, he would get adjusted and we were watching him meet all his milestones.

When he was at home and I would see him at lunch, I was missing out on so much of his day.

I kept saying that he was waking up still between 2-10 times per night. "He'll grow out of it".

I kept saying he was inconsolably crying. "He'll grow out of it".

He had some really strange behaviors. "He's a boy! He'll grow out of it".

But something was wrong with Ezra.

In May of 2024 I took Ezra in to get an adjustment, it was supposed to help him sleep better (it had worked for all of my other children, but not Ezra). The chiropractor asked what words he was saying. I had gotten him to sign, but actual words?

He had been talking. But I couldn't remember the last time I heard him say words. Something was wrong with Ezra.

He had started having these episodes, and sometimes they would happen while he was sleeping and he would just start screaming, inconsolable for "no reason". His words were gone. His emotions were BIG. And for having been a mom for 20+ years, all of the things I had learned weren't working, all the tools that I had weren't the right tools for Ezra.

In June of 2024 I met a man who had become a fairly good friend. And I was explaining to him about Ezra's tendencies and different oddities. He used the "a" word. He said that his son had been diagnosed as autistic and that at this point, he just kind of saw it everywhere. He said that he wasn't sure, he couldn't obviously diagnose but said that it was a good idea to get him evaluated.

Easy Peasy, right?

For the love of the ever loving god! I consider myself to be a very patient woman and I have been tested over and over and over. Every time I think I have learned the lesson, I am tested again.

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In August of 2024, the "dad" had broken into my house 14 times over the course of 3 months. He didn't take Ezra, he didn't try. He did disable my security cameras, moved stuff around, left my doors wide open, things just to mess with my head, at one point he wrapped up my security camera modem and set it in the middle of my bedroom. Shortly thereafter I ended up getting served that he was taking me to court for parentage and custody. I went for a restraining order. The judge granted it, then "dad" asked that he not, because he is military, security at a nuke plant, does self-defense classes and is a private investigator; he would lose all of his jobs, his guns, etc. The judge sided with him and put an injunction that if he chose to be a terrible person, he would grant me the restraining order. In the meantime, he would allow him to interact. But the break ins stopped, the texts about Ezra's conception stopped, the harassment mostly stopped. And he was granted supervised visitation at my parents' house.

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More patience.

There was definitely something wrong with Ezra and I was going to learn a whole new level of patience, resilience and advocating.