Waiting

Life in the first few months after a diagnosis with autism is like some weird race that isn't sure what it's doing.

When you're first starting out it can be fast or slow as you make appointments and chase down evaluations.

Then you wait.

Then there are more evaluations.

Then you wait.

Then maybe a diagnosis. Yay, things can happen now.

Like waiting or allowing time to pass before the next thing happens (a.k.a. more waiting).

You wait for phone calls, return calls, paperwork that makes you apologize to the trees and give thanks for computers.
 You get put on wait lists where people are apologetic for the 1-2 year wait while reasserting how important early intervention is.
You wait for the (seemingly crazy) lady on another line to stop telling you how it's impossible to have a diagnosis at 2 so that you can tell reaffirm your child's diagnosis well reminding them how nice it is that you can "start" on that early intervention.

You see more people  so you can wait some more.

I don't actually like waiting because what waiting doesn't show is the life that still has to happen while you and your family wait for the next appointment or the next strategy or the next idea that may or may not help. Yeah, that's the other thing sometimes after all that waiting the appointment doesn't actually offer any help and you wait for the next one.
It's hard because life already seems a bit like a one step forward, two steps back, three to the side, with a pirouette thrown in for a good measure.
Sometimes this process feels like it was designed by one of the choreographers on So You Think You Can Dance (and believe me I am well aware of how uncoordinated I can be depending on the day).

Waiting is hard.