Vent post. Speech delayed toddler

I feel bad even posting this but I feel like I need to talk about it. My almost 3 year old is speech delayed. She’s in speech therapy and we put in her application for speech therapy right around her 2nd bday. She’s constantly improving, esp lately, but still so behind. She just had her 3 year evaluation to get out of the early intervention, and into the “special education” program (years 3-5 now). The labels are really hard for me. I know that’s not the point and she’s in the program she needs. I’ve never said it but it really makes me feel so bad, like we did something wrong.

I’ve been feeling very good about her progress this last month. She’s saying so many new words and counting all of a sudden and saying her abcs, it’s been so exciting. She’s recognized them for awhile but actually hearing her voice saying it is amazing. Then we go in for her 3 year speech evaluation and they say she’s behind in most of her milestones. The lady conducting the interview said she can tell she would score better on a lot of these but they have to go off of what they are seeing there. They were nice but I just feel like coming out of it, it all felt so negative. Like pointing out every little detail she’s behind in. Not much positive. I hide it well but it breaks my heart hearing.

I’m so tired of going places and ppl always seem to have something to say. Not to me even which is really what makes me mad. Ppl already judge for her not talking much around them, but now they are esp when they see her meltdowns.

She seems like she’s improved so much this past month as I’ve mentioned, but also this last month her fits have gotten soooo bad. If she’s not getting exactly what she wants it’s a huge meltdown. It’s hard enough dealing with but I don’t want ppl, esp relatives we don’t see often thinking she’s just a grumpy kid. We’ve also had a lot going on this last month and been a lot busier than usual. She’s not always this way at all. I wish other ppl got to see the other side of her she usually is

All of a sudden she’s wanting to choose everything, and if she doesn’t, it’s a meltdown. We were walking on the beach and she wanted to go a certain direction. We let her go that way for awhile but we were getting too far, we needed to turn around. That set her off. Usually she can calm down after a few mins from a bad meltdown but she just couldn’t. She’s done that kind of thing so much this weekend. She just doesn’t get her way and she falls to the ground (gently) and cries so hard she can’t calm down. I’m sure it’s just a phase since this isn’t how it always was up until recently. Im really hopeful it is anyway. And anything has to be her idea to do now too, even if she usually would say yes to it, otherwise she will say no or get upset. She just wants to be in charge of any little thing

My husband and I both separately have a lot going on in our personal lives right now too. I’m not depressed, I’m usually a pretty happy person but whenever I think of this lately and keep getting paperwork regarding her evaluation or hearing comments from others after all these family events with distant relatives, my heart sinks a little. I just keep thinking we went wrong somewhere. It just feels like a lot and I want to see the light at the end of this tunnel.