My Daughter, My Mirror

Sometimes you're right and sometimes you're wrong, and sometimes you're half right. My three-year-old son quickly outgrew his pseudo-stuttering phase. I thought we were in the clear. He's the son, after all, and boys are more likely to stutter than girls.

My daughter, however, who is not yet two, has begun to stutter. And I don't mean the easy repetitions that her brother was doing. She's repeating initial sounds in words throughout each sentence, and she repeats the sounds at least four times. Tension and forcing have begun to show themselves, and while I've not noticed all-out frustration, she has most certainly resigned herself to stop speaking mid-sentence several times, finding it just wasn't worth it. This, folks, can't be anything other than the real thing. Dammit.

When I first mentioned it to my husband a couple weeks ago, he initially dismissed my concerns. Several days later, however, when my daughter repeated and semi-blocked on several words in a sentence, he said, "Whoa. You're right." And I told my friend about it a couple weeks ago, too, but she said I was probably worrying about nothing. Then when our kids were playing together last Friday, my daughter's stuttering was severe enough that my friend, trying to hide her look of alarm, said, "Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, maybe you should get that checked out."

It very well might go away. She hasn't been stuttering for more than a month. She could end up with perfectly fluent speech. And yet, with the family history she has (a stuttering mother, four stuttering great uncles, two stuttering second cousins), the odds are not on our side, and I feel the need to give her the best chance possible. Right now I don't know what that is -- therapy, or just a relaxed wait-and-see approach with careful monitoring.

Part of me is in take-charge mama mode: researching tips for parents of toddlers who stutter, looking for speech pathologists and early intervention programs in the area, etc. The other part, under the surface, is fighting feelings of guilt and sadness. I mean, it's not as if she has a terminal illness or a profound disability. I know what to expect, I know what she will need as she grows, and yet, crap, I hate to see the hard parts of my life repeated in hers.

Today my husband wanted to show us some photos he had taken at a little get-together we had yesterday. The kids and I joined him at the computer, watching the slide show of pictures, each one flashing for only three seconds or so. We were all commenting on the photos. My daughter had a lot to say. "I-i-i-i-i-i-s tha-tha-that br- I-i-is thaaaat brother?" But by the time she finished, the picture was invariably gone. I did my best to answer her questions, but before long she stopped talking, unable to keep up the pace. I could always slow down the presentation for her next time. But life isn't like that. There will be so many times when the conversation will be too quick, and she will fall behind, not stuttering, just mute. How I want to slow it all down for her, to give her the time and space she needs to let her words out, every last one of them.

This week, I have some phone calls to make. Wish me luck.